CONTEMPORARY 


COM  PO  S  E  RS 


DANIEL 
GREGORY 

MASON. 


CONTEMPORARY 
COMPOSERS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


VINCENT  D'!NDY 


CONTEMPORARY 
COMPOSERS 


DANIEL  GREGORY;  ;MASON^V 

AUTHOR     OF      "BEErHO\FiN     AND      HIS      FORERUNNERS,"      "THE       ,/ 
ROMANTIC      COMPOSERS,"      '"  FROM      GRIEG      TO      BRAHMS,"      ETC. 


NEW   YORK 

THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1918 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


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Se£ujWdirieitrotypcd.  •%$>)$£&  July,  1918 


Nnrtooolj 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


w 


E  live,"  wrote  Stevenson  to 
Will  H.  Low  in  1884,  "in 
a  rum  age  of  music  with- 
out airs,  stories  without 
incident,  pictures  without 
beauty,  American  wood-engravings  that  should 
have  been  etchings,  and  dry-point  etchings 
that  ought  to  have  been  mezzo-tints.  .  .  . 
So  long  as  an  artist  is  on  his  head,  is  paint- 
ing with  a  flute,  or  writes  with  an  etcher's 
needle,  or  conducts  the  orchestra  with  a  meat- 
axe,  all  is  well ;  and  plaudits  shower  along 
with  roses.  But  any  plain  man  who  tries  to 
follow  the  obtrusive  canons  of  his  art,  is  but 
a  commonplace  figure.  .  .  .  He  will  have  his 
reward,  but  he  will  never  be  thought  a  person 
of  parts." 

What  would  Stevenson  say,  I  wonder,  could 
he  witness  the  condition  to  which  this  con- 
fusion of  aims,  rapidly  spreading  since  he 
wrote,  has  now  reduced  all  the  arts,  and  perhaps 


PREFACE 

especially  music?  "Painting  with  a  flute" 
hardly  sounds  fantastic  any  longer,  now  that 
symphonies  have  given  place  to  symphonic 
"poems,"  orchestral  "sketches,"  and  tone 
"pictures,"  and  program  music  has  taken  the 
place  of  supremacy  in  the  art  of  tones  that 
magazine  illustration  occupies  among  graphic 
arts.  Anyone  who  tries  nowadays  to  write 
mere  music  —  expressive  of  emotion  through 
beauty  —  is  more  than  ever  "a  commonplace 
person."  The  "persons  of  parts"  are  those 
who  give  it  the  quaint  local  color  of  folk-songs, 
like  Mr.  Percy  Grainger;  or  who  make  of  it 
an  agreeable  accessory  of  dance  or  stage  pic- 
ture, like  Ravel  and  Strawinsky,  or  of  colored 
lights  and  perfumes,  like  Scriabine ;  or  who 
spin  it  into  mathematical  formulae  as  a  spider 
spins  web,  like  Reger ;  or  who  use  it  as  a  vehicle 
for  a  'priori  intellectual  theories,  like  Schoen- 
berg,  or  as  noise  for  a  nerve  stimulant,  like 
Mr.  Leo  Ornstein. 

The  reader  will  look  in  vain  for  these  names, 
in  recent  years  on  everyone's  lips,  in  the  table 
of  contents  of  this  book  on  "Contemporary 
Composers."  In  the  work  of  most  of  them 

vi 


PREFACE 

there  is,  indeed,  much  of  charm  or  interest, 
of  vividness,  perhaps  of  permanent  power. 
But  the  time  when  critical  appraisal  of  them 
can  be  anything  like  final  has  not  yet  arrived ; 
and  meanwhile  there  is  in  their  centrifugal 
tendencies,  I  believe,  a  real  menace  to  the 
best  interests  of  music.  One  and  all,  they 
look  away  from  that  inner  emotion  "to  which 
alone,"  as  Wagner  said,  "can  music  give  a 
voice,  and  music  only."  They  all  represent 
in  one  way  or  another  that  trivializing  of  the 
great  art,  that  degradation  of  it  to  sensa- 
tionalism, luxury,  or  mere  illustration,  some  of 
the  historic  causes  of  which  I  have  tried  to 
suggest  in  the  introduction.  No  sincere  lover 
of  music  can  regard  with  anything  but  the 
gravest  apprehensions  such  tendencies  toward 
decadence. 

Fortunately  these  are,  however,  powerfully 
counteracted,  even  now,  by  more  constructive 
forces,  carrying  forward  the  evolution  of  music 
in  and  for  itself  which  was  the  main  concern 
of  the  great  elder  masters  who  regarded  it  as 
a  supreme  emotional  language  —  Bach,  Bee- 
thoven, Brahms,  Wagner,  Franck.  It  is  the 


PREFACE 

representatives  of  this  sounder  tradition  (de- 
spite the  programmism  of  Strauss  and  the 
sybaritism  of  Debussy)  that  I  have  selected 
for  discussion  here.  They  have  also  the  further 
advantage  of  having  been  long  enough  before 
the  public  to  have  vindicated  already  their 
claims  to  permanent  place  in  musical  history. 

The  present  volume,  it  may  be  added,  com- 
pletes the  series  of  studies  of  great  creative 
musicians  from  Palestrina  to  the  present  day 
begun  in  "Beethoven  and  His  Forerunners," 
"The  Romantic  Composers,"  and  "From  Grieg 
to  Brahms."  For  permission  to  reprint  the 
essays  it  contains,  acknowledgment  is  made  to 
the  editors  of  the  Musical  Quarterly,  the  Out- 
look, and  the  New  Music  Review. 

D.  G.  M. 

NEW  YORK, 

January  26,  1918. 


viii 


CONTENTS 

MM 

I.  INTRODUCTION:    DEMOCRACY  AND  Music        .  i 

II.  RICHARD  STRAUSS 43 

III.  SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR 93 

IV.  CLAUDE  DEBUSSY 133 

V.  VINCENT  D'!NDY 153 

VI.  Music  IN  AMERICA 229 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

VINCENT  D'!NDY Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

RICHARD  STRAUSS 45 

SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR 95 

CLAUDE  DEBUSSY 135 

VINCENT  D'!NDY  AS  A  YOUNG  MAN        .                 .  155 


I 

INTRODUCTION 
DEMOCRACY  AND  MUSIC 


I 

INTRODUCTION 
DEMOCRACY  AND  MUSIC 


music  who  are  at  the  same  time 


interested  students  of  the  social 


accompanied 


must  often   ask   themselves   whether   there 


any  deep  connection  of  cause  and  effect  between 
the  two  sets  of  phenomena,  or  whether  they 
merely  happened  to  take  place  at  the  same 
time.  Have  the  important  social  transforma- 
tions of  the  nineteenth  century  reached  so  far 
in  their  influence  as  to  the  music  of  our  time  ? 
Has  sociology  any  light  to  throw  upon  musical 
art  ?  The  question  raises  a  problem  as  diffi- 
cult as  it  is  fascinating ;  and  the  suggestions 
which  follow  are  to  be  taken  as  guesses  and 
hints,  intended  to  provoke  fertile  thought, 
rather  than  as  constituting  in  any  sense  a 
finished  theory. 

1 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

I 

The  change  in  the  nature  of  the  musical 
public  that  has  taken  place  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  been  gradual  but  far- 
reaching.  The  essence  of  it  is  expressed  by 
saying  that  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury music  was  in  the  hands  of  the  nobility 
and  gentry,  and  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  it  is  in  those  of  all  the  people.  Under 
feudal  conditions  it  was  organized  by  the 
patronage  system  according  to  the  tastes  of 
the  aristocratic  few.  The  thirty  most  fruitful 
years  of  Haydn's  life  were  spent  in  the  employ 
of  Prince  Esterhazy ;  Mozart,  a  skilled  pianist 
as  well  as  composer,  was  less  dependent  on  his 
patron,  but  his  life  was  probably  shortened  by 
the  hardships  he  had  to  face  after  he  had 
broken  with  him ;  Beethoven,  staunch  demo- 
crat though  he  was,  realized  what  he  owed  his 
four  patrons,  Archduke  Rudolph,  and  Princes 
Lobkowitz,  Kinsky,  and  Lichnowsky,  and 
wrote,  after  the  death  of  some  of  them  had 
reduced  the  value  of  his  annuity:  "In  order 
to  gain  time  for  a  great  composition,  I  must 

4 


DEMOCRACY      AND       MUSIC 

always  previously  scrawl  away  a  good  deal  for 
the  sake  of  money.  ...  If  my  salary  were 
not  so  far  reduced  as  not  to  be  a  salary  at  all, 
I  should  write  nothing  but  symphonies  .  .  . 
and  church  music,  or  at  most  quartets."  No 
doubt  the  patronage  system  had  its  faults  and 
abuses,  which  have  been  quite  adequately  dis- 
cussed by  critics ;  the  fact  remains  that  under 
it  was  done  the  supreme  creative  work  of  the 
golden  age  of  music.  Greater  than  any  of  its 
material  advantages  was  the  spiritual  homo- 
geneity of  the  group  who  practised  it.  By 
excluding  the  lower  classes,  however  unjustly, 
they  achieved,  though  artificially,  a  unity  of 
feeling  that  could  not  then  have  been  achieved 
otherwise ;  and  as  art  is  in  essence  an  emotional 
reaction  this  unity  of  feeling  provided  a  soil  in 
which  its  seeds  could  grow. 

But  with  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
passing  of  feudalism  this  old  order  perished. 
The  proclamation  of  liberty,  equality,  and  fra- 
ternity, paving  the  way  for  individualistic  com- 
petition, introduced  the  epoch  of  industrialism 
and  capitalism,  in  which  art,  like  everything 
else,  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  a  privileged 

5 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

class,  and  made  theoretically  accessible  to  all. 
As  the  appreciation  of  art  requires,  however, 
mental  and  emotional  experience,  discipline, 
and  refining,  a  process  which  takes  time,  what 
actually  happened  was  that  those  gradually 
emerging  from  poverty  through  industrialism 
—  the  workers  themselves  and  their  children 
and  grandchildren  —  availed  themselves  much 
more  slowly  and  timidly  of  these  spiritual 
privileges  than  of  the  material  ones.  There 
remained  over  from  the  feudal  world  a  nucleus 
of  cultivated  people,  sufficiently  homogeneous 
in  feeling  to  retain  a  standard  of  taste,  suffi- 
ciently numerous  to  exert  an  influence  on 
production :  these  were  the  guardians  of  the 
better  traditions.  They  were  gradually  but 
steadily  interpenetrated  and  overrun  by  the 
emergents,  at  first  in  a  minority  but  rapidly 
becoming  the  majority,  and  remaining,  of 
course,  unavoidably  far  more  backward  in 
artistic  feeling  than  in  economic  independence 
and  social  ambition.  Thus  was  introduced  a 
formidable  cleavage  in  the  musical  public,  the 
majority  breaking  off  sharply  by  their  childlike 
crudity  from  the  more  disciplined  minority. 

6 


DEMOCRACY      AND      MUSIC 

The  situation  was  further  complicated  by 
the  presence  of  a  third  class,  the  idle  rich, 
becoming  more  numerous  under  capitalism. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  their  attitude 
towards  art  was  qualitatively  different  in  any 
important  respect  from  that  of  the  frivolous 
nobility  under  feudalism.  Both  groups  re- 
garded music  either  with  complete  indifference 
or  else  as  an  amusement,  a  plaything,  a  fad ; 
both  exercised  an  influence  which  through  its 
essential  artificiality  was  potentially  perhaps 
even  more  baleful  than  that  of  the  honest 
crudity  of  what  we  have  called  the  emergent 
class,  though  actually  less  disastrous  because 
they  were  a  small  minority  instead  of  the  ma- 
jority. But  the  contribution  of  this  group  to 
the  confusion  and  disorganization  character- 
istic of  art  under  democracy  was  greater  than 
that  of  the  feudal  nobles,  because  their  relation 
to  society  as  a  whole  counted  more.  When 
they  were  placed  by  the  emergence  of  the 
democratic  majority  in  a  vigorous  opposition 
of  attitude  to  the  bulk  of  the  people  their  in- 
fluence no  longer  remained  largely  negative, 
but  made  positively  for  cleavage  and  dis- 

7 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

union.  Thus  the  unity  of  social  emotion  on 
which  art  so  largely  depends  for  a  healthy 
universality  was  still  further  disrupted. 

We  find,  then,  under  democracy,  not  a  fairly 
homogeneous  musical  public  with  emotionally 
a  single  point  of  view,  such  as  existed  under 
feudalism,  but  a  division  into  a  well-meaning 
but  crude  majority  and  two  minorities,  one 
cultivated,  the  other  frivolous  :  all  three,  but 
especially  the  two  extremes,  held  apart  by 
profound  differences  of  feeling.  Despite  the 
inevitability  and  the  desirability  of  democrati- 
zation as  the  only  path  away  from  slavery, 
such  a  disorganization,  even  if  temporary, 
must  evidently,  while  it  lasts,  work  serious 
injuries  to  art.  It  is  worth  while  to  try, 
taking  frankly  at  first  the  attitude  of  the  devil's 
advocate,  to  trace  a  few  of  the  more  striking  of 
these  injuries  as  they  show  themselves  in  con- 
temporary music. 

II 

Of  the  "emergents"  who  constitute  the 
most  novel  element  in  the  contemporary  situa- 
tion, the  well-meaning  but  crude  listeners  who 


DEMOCRACY      AND      MUSIC 

form  a  numerically  overwhelming  majority 
of  our  concertgoers,  the  effect  may  be  de- 
scribed, in  most  general  terms,  as  being  to 
put  a  premium  on  all  that  is  easily  grasped, 
obvious,  primitive,  at  the  expense  of  the  sub- 
tler, more  highly  organized  effects  of  art  —  on 
sensation  as  against  thought,  on  facile  senti- 
ment as  against  deep  feeling,  on  extrinsic 
association  as  against  intrinsic  beauty.  Men- 
tally, emotionally,  and  aesthetically  children, 
they  naturally  demand  the  childlike,  if  not 
the  childish. 

There  seems  to  be  something  far  deeper 
than  accident  in  the  coincidence  of  the  rise 
about  1830,  that  is,  about  a  generation  after 
the  French  Revolution,  under  Berlioz  and  Liszt, 
of  that  program  music  which  is  generally 
acknowledged  to  be  peculiarly  characteristic 
of  our  period,  with  the  invasion  of  concert- 
halls  by  masses  of  these  childlike  listeners, 
as  eager  for  the  stories  that  music  might  be 
made  to  suggest  as  they  were  unprepared  to 
appreciate  its  more  intrinsic  beauties.  They 
were  drawn  by  the  "program"  before  they 
grew  up  to  the  "music."  Lacking  the  con- 

9 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

centration  needed  to  hold  all  but  the  simplest 
melodies  together  in  their  minds,  pathetically 
incapable  of  the  far  greater  range  and  pre- 
cision of  attention  required  to  hear  syntheti- 
cally a  complex  work  like  an  overture  or  a 
symphony,  they  were  puzzled  or  bored  by 
Beethoven,  and  in  their  helplessness  to  follow 
a  musical  thread  could  only  grope  in  the  dark 
until  they  found  a  dramatic  one.  Such  a  clue 
in  the  labyrinth  was  the  "program."  They 
hailed  it  with  the  delight  of  the  comparatively 
unmusical  person  in  opera,  who  considers  it  the 
highest  type  of  music  because  it  supplies  him 
with  the  largest  apparatus  of  non-musical  com- 
mentaries (scenery,  gestures,  words)  on  the 
music  he  cannot  understand.  Program  music, 
a  sort  of  idealized  opera  with  scenery  and  actors 
left  to  the  imagination,  fulfilled  the  same  in- 
dispensable service  for  the  novice  in  the  con- 
cert-room. 

The  immense  popularity  of  the  program 
idea,  from  that  day  to  this,  is  evidence  of  its 
complete  fitness  to  the  needs  of  its  audience. 
It  says  to  them,  in  effect:  "You  have  little 
'ear'  for  music,  and  take  no  more  joy  in  the 

10 


DEMOCRACY      AND      MUSIC 

highly  organized  melodies  of  a  Beethoven 
symphony  or  a  Bach  fugue,  with  their  infinite 
subtlety  of  tonal  and  rhythmic  relationships, 
than  in  the  most  trivial  tunes.  Never  mind  :  I 
will  give  you  two  or  three  short  motives,  clearly 
labeled,  that  you  cannot  help  recognizing. 
This  one  will  mean  'love,'  that  'jealousy,' 
that  'death,'  and  so  on.  .  .  .  You  are  not 
fascinated  by,  because  you  are  unable  to  follow, 
the  creative  imagination  by  which  such  masters 
as  these  build  whole  worlds  of  musical  beauty 
out  of  a  few  simple  themes  —  an  imagination 
as  truly  creative  as  that  which  carried  Newton 
from  the  falling  apple  to  the  law  of  gravitation, 
or  directed  the  infinite  patient  delving  in  de- 
tail of  a  Pasteur  or  a  Darwin.  Never  mind. 
Remember  the  story,  and  you  will  know  that 
during  the  love  scene  the  composer  must  be 
developing  the  'love'  motive.  .  .  .  You  are 
even  more  indifferent  to  the  broader  balance 
of  part  with  part,  the  symmetry  and  coopera- 
tion of  all  in  the  whole,  harder  to  grasp  just 
as  the  concinnity  of  a  Greek  temple  as  a  whole 
is  harder  to  feel  than  the  charm  of  a  bit  of 
sculpture  here  or  the  texture  of  the  marble 

ii 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

there.  Never  mind.  I  will  give  you  a  structure 
in  sections,  like  a  sky-scraper.  Section  will 
follow  section  as  event  follows  event  in  the 
plot.  ...  In  short,  the  story  shall  be  'All 
you  know,  and  all  you  need  to  know.'  It 
shall  be  a  straw  that  will  keep  you  from  drown- 
ing as  the  inundation  of  the  music  passes 
over  you,  and  that  will  save  you  the  trouble 
of  learning  to  swim." 

Of  course,  this  does  not  mean  that  music 
of  a  high  order  cannot  be  associated  with  a 
program,  or  that  the  two  cannot  be  not  only 
coexistent  but  fruitfully  cooperative.  They 
are  so  in  many  a  representative  modern  work 
—  in  Strauss's  "Death  and  Transfiguration," 
for  instance,  or  d'Indy's  "Istar,"  or  Dukas's 
"L'Apprenti  Sorcier,"  or  Rachmaninoff's 
"Island  of  the  Dead."  What  is  meant  is 
that  the  program  idea  derives  both  its  popu- 
larity and  its  peculiar  menace  in  large  measure 
from  the  stress  it  places  on  the  appeal  to  some- 
thing outside  music  —  to  association,  that  is  — 
at  the  expense  of  the  appeal  to  music  itself, 
and  thus  from  the  official  sanction  it  seems  to 
give  to  what  is  essentially  an  unmusical  con- 

12 


DEMOCRACY      AND       MUSIC 

ception  of  music.  The  program  school  of 
composers  is  the  first  school  that  has  not  merely 
tolerated  but  encouraged,  elaborated,  and 
rationalized  the  conviction  of  the  unmusical 
that  music  is  to  be  valued  chiefly  not  for  itself, 
but  for  something  else.  How  dangerous  such 
a  compromise  with  the  majority  may  be,  both 
to  public  taste  and  to  the  composer,  is  start- 
lingly,  not  to  say  tragically,  illustrated  by  the 
steady  tendency  of  the  greatest  master  of  the 
school,  Richard  Strauss,  to  become  more  and 
more  trivially  "realistic"  with  each  new  work, 
and  by  the  complaisance  of  the  public  in  pay- 
ing him  vast  sums  of  money  for  thus  progres- 
sively corrupting  it.  In  every  one  of  his 
symphonic  poems,  from  the  exuberant  "Don 
Juan"  (1888)  to  the  surprisingly  banal  "Alpen- 
symphonie"  (1915),  glorious  pages  of  music 
have  alternated  with  silly  tricks  of  imitation, 
as  for  instance  the  splendid  development  of 
the  husband  theme  in  the  "Symphonia  Do- 
mestica"  with  the  bawling  of  the  baby;  but 
in  the  latest  we  have  the  maximum  of  imita- 
tion and  the  minimum  of  music.  Apart  from 
their  gorgeous  orchestral  dress  its  themes  are 

13 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

with  few  exceptions  commonplace,  dull,  and 
pretentious.  Except  in  one  or  two  passages 
they  are  not  imaginatively  or  significantly 
developed.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  no 
end  of  "tone-painting,"  much  of  it  a  revamping 
of  the  distant-hunting-horns,  rustling-leaves, 
and  warbling-bird-calls  which  have  been  time- 
worn  theatrical  properties  of  music  ever  since 
Raff's  "Im  Walde"  and  Wagner's  "Wald- 
weben";  some  of  it  more  original,  like  the 
pictures  of  sunrise  and  sunset  with  which 
the  work  begins  and  ends.  In  these  associa- 
tively  vivid  but  musically  amorphous  passages 
melody,  harmony,  rhythm,  key  disappear  in  a 
strange  opaque  cloud  of  tone,  realistically 
representing  night  —  the  kind  of  night  to 
which  the  German  wit  compared  Hegel's 
Absolute  —  "in  which  all  cows  are  black." 
The  same  childish  realism  which  made  Wagner 
show  us  his  dragon  on  the  stage  instead  of  in 
our  own  imaginations  introduces  a  wind- 
machine  in  the  storm  and  sheep  bells  in  the 
mountain  pasture.  In  all  this  we  see  an 
artist  who  was  once  capable  of  writing  the  in- 
troduction and  coda  of  "Death  and  Trans- 

14 


DEMOCRACY       AND      MUSIC 

figuration"  taking  his  art  into  the  nursery  to 
play  games  with. 

But  the  effect  of  music  on  childlike  audi- 
ences, indisposed  to  active  mental  effort  and 
all  for  taking  music  passively  like  a  kind  of 
tonal  Turkish  bath,  reaches  its  logical  extreme 
not  in  the  program  music  of  which  Strauss  is 
the  most  famous  exponent,  but  in  that  super- 
ficially different  but  fundamentally  related 
movement  known  as  impressionism,  which  is 
led  by  the  other  most  discussed  composer  of 
our  day,  Debussy.  Strikingly  contrasted  as 
are  these  two  leaders  of  contemporary  music 
in  temperament,  in  artistic  aims,  in  technical 
methods,  their  aesthetic  theories  are  at  one  in 
the  slight  demands  they  make  on  the  attention 
of  an  inevitably  inattentive  public.  Both 
encourage  the  listener  to  look  away  from  the 
music  itself  to  something  that  it  suggests  to 
him.  But  impressionism  goes  further  than 
programmism.  May  not  those  people,  it  says, 
who  find  organic  melody,  development,  and 
form  fatiguing,  and  to  whom  you  give  a  pro- 
gram to  help  them  out  —  may  they  not  find 
the  program  fatiguing,  too  ?  May  not  its 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

being  prescribed  offend  their  sense  of  "free- 
dom" ?  Why  exact  of  them  the  effort  to 
follow  even  the  story  ?  Better  to  give  them 
simply  a  title,  as  vague  and  elusive  as  pos- 
sible, and  foster  the  mood  of  day-dreaming 
thus  suggested  by  avoiding  all  definite  melodic, 
rhythmic,  or  harmonic  features  in  the  music, 
while  enhancing  its  purely  sensuous  charm  to 
the  utmost  degree  possible.  Such,  carried 
out  with  extraordinary  talent,  is  the  artistic 
creed  of  Debussy.  Just  as  programmism  ap- 
peals from  music  to  association,  impressionism 
appeals  to  sentiment,  to  fancy,  and  to  the 
phantasmagoric  reveries  upon  which  they  are 
ever  so  ready  to  embark. 

It  is  noteworthy,  moreover,  that  both  pro- 
grammism and  impressionism,  however  system- 
atically they  may  minimize  their  demands 
on  the  intelligence  of  their  audience,  do  not 
abate,  but  rather  tend  constantly  to  increase, 
their  ministration  to  its  sense.  Indeed,  they 
systematically  maximize  their  sensuous  ap- 
peal ;  and  though  their  characteristic  methods 
of  making  this  appeal  differ  as  widely  as  their 

general  attitudes,  that  of  programmism  being 

16 


DEMOCRACY      AND      MUSIC 

extensive  and  that  of  impressionism  intensive, 
the  insistence  of  both  on  sensuous  rather  than 
on  intellectual  or  emotional  values  is  surely 
one  of  the  most  indicative,  and  it  may  be  added 
one  of  the  most  disquieting,  symptoms  of  the 
condition  of  modern  music. 

The  method  of  the  program  school  in  general, 
and  of  Strauss  in  particular,  is  extensive  in 
that  it  aims  at  boundless  piling  up  of  means, 
a  formidable  accumulation  of  sonorities  for 
the  besieging  of  the  ear.  Its  motto  is  that 
attributed  to  the  German  by  the  witty  French- 
man:  "Plenty  of  it."  Berlioz,  the  pioneer 
of  the  movement,  with  his  "mammoth  orches- 
tras," and  his  prescription,  in  his  requiem,  of 
four  separate  brass  bands,  one  at  each  corner 
of  the  church,  and  eight  pairs  of  kettle-drums 
in  addition  to  bass  drum,  gong,  and  cymbals ; 
Mahler,  commencing  a  symphony  with  a  solo 
melody  for  eight  horns ;  Strauss,  with  his 
twelve  horns  behind  the  scenes  in  the  "Alpen- 
symphonie,"  to  say  nothing  of  wind-machine, 
thunder-machine,  sheep  bells,  and  a  whole 
regiment  of  more  usual  instruments  —  all 
these  disciples  of  the  extensive  or  quantitative 
c  17 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

method  aim  to  dazzle,  stun,  bewilder,  and 
overwhelm.  They  can  be  recognized  by  their 
abuse  of  the  brass  and  percussion  groups,  their 
childlike  faith  that  if  a  noise  is  only  loud 
enough  it  becomes  noble.  They  have  a  tend- 
ency, too,  to  mass  whole  groups  of  instruments 
on  a  single  "part,"  as  Tschaikowsky,  for  in- 
stance, so  often  does  with  his  strings,  what- 
ever the  sacrifice  of  interesting  detail,  for  the 
sake  of  brilliance  and  eclat.  To  some  extent, 
of  course,  all  this  is  justified,  even  necessitated, 
by  the  vast  size  of  modern  concert-halls ;  but 
a  candid  observer  can  hardly  deny  that  it  is 
systematically  overdone  in  the  interests  of 
sensationalism.  The  same  tendency  is  ob- 
servable also  in  other  than  orchestral  music. 
The  piano,  treated  with  such  admirable  re- 
straint by  Chopin  and  by  Debussy,  has  been 
forced  by  Liszt  and  his  followers  toward  jan- 
gling, crashing  sonorities  that  can  penetrate  the 
most  callous  sensorium.  The  equipment  of 
organs  with  "solo  stops"  and  other  devices 
for  the  tickling  of  idle  ears  has  turned  the  king 
of  instruments  too  often  into  a  holiday  harle- 
quin. Even  the  string  quartet,  last  rallying- 

18 


DEMOCRACY      AND      MUSIC 

ground  of  music  against  the  ubiquitous 
onslaught  of  sensationalism,  begins  in  many 
modern  scores,  with  their  constant  double 
stops  and  tremolos,  and  their  "  effects "  of 
mutes,  pizzicato,  "ponticello,"  "col  legno," 
and  the  rest,  to  sound  like  a  rather  poor, 
thin  orchestra,  striving  for  a  variety  and  ful- 
ness of  color  beyond  its  capacity. 

The  fallacy  of  the  extensive  method  is  that 
it  is  trying  to  satisfy  a  craving  essentially  in- 
satiable. Such  an  appetite  for  mere  quantity 
of  sound  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on ;  luxury 
breeds  ennui ;  and,  as  every  sensualist  knows 
to  his  sorrow,  there  never  can  be  "plenty  of 
it."  A  sense  of  this  futility  inherent  in  the 
extensive  method  as  it  has  been  practised  in 
modern  Germany  and  elsewhere  has  led  another 
school,  chiefly  modern  French,  to  try  for  simi- 
lar results  by  a  different  method,  which  may 
be  called  the  intensive.  Such  a  composer  as 
Debussy,  who  may  here  be  taken  as  typical, 
aims,  to  be  sure,  primarily  at  sensuous  rather 
than  at  mental  or  spiritual  values,  but  achieves 
them  by  qualitative  refinement  and  contrast 
rather  than  by  quantitative  accumulation, 

19 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

and  avoids  exaggeration  in  favor  of  a  delicate, 
almost  finical,  understatement  and  suggestive- 
ness.  While  sonority  is  as  much  his  god  as 
Strauss's,  he  is  the  connoisseur  of  subtle,  elu- 
sive sonorities,  each  to  be  sipped  like  a  wine  of 
rarest  bouquet,  rather  than  an  enthusiast  of 
the  full-bodied  brew.  The  subtlety  of  the 
methods  often  leads  his  admirers  to  claim  a 
superior  "spirituality"  in  the  aims,  but  this 
is  a  mistake.  His  school  is  more  spiritual  than 
Strauss's  only  as  a  gourmet  is  more  spiritual 
than  a  glutton.  Both  schools  prefer  sensation 
to  thought  and  emotion,  association  to  intrinsic 
beauty,  color  to  line.  The  difference  is  that 
"Pelleas  et  Melisande"  is  the  violet  or  ultra- 
violet end  of  the  spectrum  of  which  "Salome" 
is  the  red. 

A  curious  by-product  of  the  cult  of  the 
elusive  sonority  is  the  exaggerated,  the  almost 
morbid,  interest  that  has  emanated  from 
modern  France  in  novelty  of  harmonic  idiom. 
One  would  suppose,  to  read  many  contemporary 
critics,  that  the  sole  criterion  of  a  good  com- 
poser depended  on  his  use  of  some  recondite 
scheme  of  harmony,  whether  based  on  the 

20 


DEMOCRACY      AND      MUSIC 

whole-tone  scale,  on  the  mediaeval  modes,  on 
new  applications  of  chromaticism,  on  the  "har- 
monic polyphony"  of  Casella  and  others,  or 
on  the  arbitrary  asperities  of  the  Italian  noise- 
makers  and  Mr.  Leo  Ornstein.  If  you  wish 
to  be  considered  an  "ultra-modernist"  you 
may  do  quite  as  you  please,  both  as  regards 
commission  and  omission,  in  rhythm,  melody, 
polyphony,  form,  provided  only  you  are  har- 
monically eccentric.  This  insistence  on  har- 
mony, on  the  momentary  tone-combination, 
suggests  a  predominant  concern  with  the 
sensuous  side  of  music  which  is  highly  significant 
as  a  symptom.  It  is  a  stressing  of  that  which 
the  senses  alone  can  perceive  from  moment 
to  moment,  without  any  aid  from  memory, 
imagination,  comparison,  and  other  mental 
acts  required  for  the  perception  of  rhythm  and 
melody.  In  short,  it  is  an  evidence  of  the 
same  materialistic  tendency  to  rely  on  the 
physical  rather  than  the  mental  appeal,  on 
the  investiture  of  the  idea  rather  than  on  the 
idea  itself,  which  we  noted  in  the  extensive 
method.  Whatever  their  differences,  both 
methods  are  thus  at  one  in  the  tendency  to  use 

21 


CONTEMPORARY      COMPOSERS 

materials  as  makeshifts  for  thought.  Mahler 
failing  to  get  with  eight  horns  the  effect  that 
Schubert  got  with  two  —  plus  a  great  melodic 
idea  —  at  the  opening  of  his  C  Major  Sym- 
phony, Debussy  confectioning  a  banal  bit  of 
tune  in  muted  string  or  pastoral  flute  sonorities 
with  piquant  harmonies  —  both  are  appealing, 
with  varying  success,  from  our  minds  and  hearts 
to  our  auditory  nerves.  The  increasing  meas- 
ure of  success  attending  such  appeals  shows 
vividly  the  numerical  advantage  that  the  hun- 
gry or  curious  auditory  nerves  have,  in  the 
modern  democratic  audience,  over  the  en- 
lightened minds  and  hearts. 

Ill 

And  indeed,  how  should  we  expect  it  to  be 
otherwise  ?  Enlightened  minds  and  hearts, 
we  must  remember,  are  the  finest  and  rarest 
fruits  of  civilization,  to  be  cultivated  only  under 
conditions  of  decent  leisure,  fair  physical  and 
mental  health,  and  free  association  with  "the 
best  that  has  been  done  and  thought  in  the 
world."  When  they  are  so  rare  even  in  the 
class  that  has  all  these  advantages,  how  shall 

22 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

we  expect  them  to  be  common  among  those 
living  either  in  an  industrial  servitude  that 
for  monotony  of  toil  is  almost  worse  than 
chattel  slavery,  or  by  clerical  and  other  second- 
ary work  that  through  the  modern  specializa- 
tion and  subdivision  of  labor  condemns  each 
individual  to  a  more  or  less  mechanical  repeti- 
tion of  a  few  small  acts  through  the  larger 
part  of  his  working  hours,  a  routine  the  relation 
of  which  to  human  life  as  a  whole  he  often 
does  not  see  ?  Writers  on  sociology  are  be- 
ginning to  realize *  that  such  conditions  of 
work  inevitably  produce  a  morbid  psychological 
condition  in  the  worker,  dulling  his  mind  by 
the  meaningless  drudgery  and  depressing  his 
body  and  nerves  by  fatigue-poisons,  so  that 
even  in  his  few  hours  of  leisure  his  perfectly 
natural  seeking  for  pleasure  does  not  take 
entirely  normal  paths.  Too  exhausted  to  re- 
spond to  delicate  shades  and  subtle  relation- 
ships, whether  in  sensuous  or  mental  objects, 
his  jaded  nerves  cry  out  for  violent  stimuli,  for 
sharp  contrasts,  for  something  to  goad  and 

1  See,  for  example,  "The  Great  Society,"  by  Graham  Wallas, 
and  "Work  and  Wealth,"  by  J.  A.  Hobson. 

23 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

whip  them  into  new  activity.  This  craving  for 
violent  stimuli  is  the  essential  feature  of  the 
fatigue-psychology.  Now,  is  it  not  highly 
suggestive  that  the  age  of  industrialism  is  also 
the  age  of  a  hundred  goads  for  tired  nerves  — 
of  the  newspaper  headline,  the  dime-novel  and 
"penny-thriller,"  the  lurid  moving-picture 
drama,  rag-time  and  the  "revue"?  And  is  it 
not  possible  that  the  sensationalism  of  so 
much  modern  music  is  only  another  evidence, 
on  a  somewhat  higher  plane,  of  the  working 
of  this  same  psychology  of  fatigue  ? 

Again,  these  overworn  nerves  of  ours  have 
within  a  comparatively  short  period  had  brought 
to  bear  upon  them,  through  the  progress  of 
modern  invention  with  its  cheap  printing,  quick 
transportation,  and  long  distance  communica- 
tion, a  thousand  distractions.  No  longer  in- 
sulated from  the  outlying  world,  so  to  speak, 
by  time  and  space,  as  were  our  more  simply- 
living  ancestors,  we  read,  hear,  and  see  as  much 
in  a  day  as  they  did  in  a  week.  The  inevitable 
result  has  been  a  diffusion  of  attention  fatal 
to  concentrated  thought  except  for  the  most 
resolute,  breeding  in  the  average  man  mental 

24 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

indigestion  and  habits  of  disorder  and  impa- 
tience, and  gradually  evolving  the  characteristic 
modern  type  —  quick,  sharp,  and  shallow. 
Outward  distraction  has  thus  added  its  in- 
fluence to  inner  weariness  to  urge  our  art 
away  from  quiet  thought  towards  ever  noisier 
solicitation.  For  thought  always  depends  on 
simplification,  on  inhibition :  in  order  to  think 
we  must  neglect  the  given-by-sense,  as  we  see 
strikingly  in  the  case  of  the  absent-minded,  in 
order  to  attend  to  the  given-by-memory-and- 
imagination ;  and  over-stimulation  of  sense  is 
therefore  just  as  hostile  to  thought  as  the  de- 
pression of  the  higher  mental  faculties  through 
fatigue.  Thus  it  is  highly  characteristic  of 
our  prevailing  attitude  that  we  strive,  not 
for  elimination,  but  for  accumulation,  dis- 
traction, dissipation.  The  formula  is  always 
mental  apathy,  physical  and  nervous  excite- 
ment. Not  having  the  joy  of  the  mastery 
which  comes  only  through  thought,  because 
we  lack  both  concentration  and  favorable 
opportunity  to  discipline  ourselves,  we  seek 
the  stimulus  of  constant  change.  We  digest 
nothing,  taste  everything;  "eclecticism"  is  our 

25 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

euphemism  for  spreading  our  attention  very 
wide  and  very  thin ;  and  the  nightmare  that 
you  soon  uncover  under  all  our  art  is  not  that 
our  minds  may  become  bewildered  (for  that 
they  are  already),  but  that  our  senses  may  be- 
come jaded  —  which  of  course  they  do. 

Still  another  line  of  influence  that  may  be 
traced  from  general  modern  conditions  to  the 
peculiar  qualities  of  modern  art  concerns  es- 
pecially the  third  of  the  classes  described  above, 
the  capitalist  class.  Here  again  we  find  a 
morbid  condition,  a  distortion  of  wholesome 
human  contacts ;  but  here  instead  of  the  im- 
pediment of  meaningless  drudgery,  it  is  the 
incubus  of  a  fruitless,  selfish  idleness.  Cut 
off  from  the  normal  outlet  of  energy  in  useful 
work,  the  luxurious  classes  become  pampered 
and  bored,  and  develop  through  very  vacuity 
a  perverted  taste  for  the  unusual,  the  queer, 
the  generally  upside  down  and  backside  to. 
Every  season  sees  a  new  crop  of  the  "isms" 
thus  produced,  the  ephemera  of  the  world  of 
art,  which  live  a  day  and  die  as  soon  as  they 
lose  their  one  interest,  novelty.  Of  all  manifes- 
tations of  so-called  "art"  they  are  the  most 

26 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

sterile,  the  most  completely  devoid  of  vital 
relation  to  any  real  impulse.  They  might  be 
ignored  did  they  not  complicate  still  further 
an  already  complicated  situation,  and  were 
they  not  an  additional,  though  a  largely  nega- 
tive, illustration  of  the  close  causative  relation 
between  general  social  conditions  and  artistic 
expression  that  our  discussion  is  making  more 
and  more  evident.  Fortunately  they  produce 
little  enduring  effect  beyond  their  own  narrow 
circles ;  for  as  they  spring  not  from  any  vital 
interest,  but  only  from  an  unguided  curiosity 
and  desire  for  excitement,  they  take  mutually 
opposing  forms  and  largely  cancel  each  other. 
Thus,  for  instance,  fads  for  very  old  or  for 
very  new  music,  directed  as  they  are  toward 
the  mere  age  or  the  mere  newness,  and  having 
no  concern  with  the  quality  of  the  music  itself, 
leave  the  actual  public  taste  just  where  it 
would  have  been  had  they  never  arisen. 
Nevertheless  the  diversion  of  so  much  energy, 
which  might  under  better  conditions  find  an 
outlet  in  fruitful  activity,  to  a  sterile  posture- 
making,  is  uneconomical  and  to  be  regretted. 
So  far,  we  have  been  looking  chiefly,  from 
27 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

the  point  of  view  of  the  devil's  advocate,  at 
the  injurious  influences  on  contemporary  music 
that  can  be  traced  with  some  degree  of  plausi- 
bility to  the  capitalistic  and  industrial  social 
system  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Noting 
the  sensational  bent,  whether  extensively  or 
intensively  expressing  itself,  of  the  chief  con- 
temporary schools,  we  have  asked  ourselves 
whether  it  could  be  attributed  in  some  measure 
to  the  kind  of  demand  made  by  an  audience 
dulled  by  overwork  at  monotonous  tasks  and 
depressed  by  fatigue-poisons.  Remarking  the 
multiplicity  of  fads  and  "isms"  by  which  our 
art  is  confused,  we  have  asked  how  far  these 
might  be  attributed  to  the  cravings  of  a  group 
whose  normal  appetites  have  been  perverted 
by  luxury  and  self-centered  isolation.  All  of 
these  evils,  we  have  insisted,  are  aggravated 
in  their  effects  by  the  distractions  under  which 
we  live.  It  is  now  time,  however,  taking  a 
more  positive  view  and  attempting  a  more 
constructive  theory,  to  ask  how  these  evils 
may  be  combated,  what  more  hopeful  ele- 
ments already  exist  in  the  situation,  and  what 
others  may  be  expected  to  develop  in  the  future. 

28 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

IV 

First  of  all,  it  may  be  suggested  that,  so  far 
as  these  evils  are  fairly  attributable  to  the 
social  conditions  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
they  may  fairly  be  expected  to  be  mitigated 
somewhat  by  those  changes  which  already  seem 
probable  in  those  of  the  twentieth.  The 
capitalistic  era  seems  likely  to  be  followed  by 
an  era  of  cooperation  or  communism;  and  in 
countless  ways  such  a  change  must  eventually 
be  deeply  revivifying  to  all  forms  of  art.  Of 
course,  it  is  only  too  easy  to  indulge  in  baseless 
dreams  of  the  results  upon  art  of  a  millennium 
brought  about  in  this  way,  only  too  easy  to 
forget  that  we  are  only  at  the  threshold  of  such 
new  systems  of  organization,  and  that  they 
may  go  the  wrong  way  instead  of  the  right. 
All  we  can  safely  say  is  that  if  they  do  go  the 
right  way  they  will  rescue  art,  among  many 
other  human  interests,  from  the  condition  to 
which  much  of  it  has  been  prostituted  under 
capitalism. 

Let  us  suppose,  for  instance,  that  something 
like  what  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  calls  the  Great 

29 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

State  *  eventually  results  from  the  troublous 
reconstructions  through  which  we  are  living. 
The  Great  State  is  only  one  of  three  possi- 
bilities he  sees  in  the  further  adjustment  of 
the  leisure  class  and  the  labor  class  of  our 
present  order.  The  first  possibility  (and  a 
disagreeably  vivid  one  it  must  seem  to  all 
thoughtful  Americans)  is  that  "the  leisure  class 
may  degenerate  into  a  waster  class,"  and  the 
labor  class  "may  degenerate  into  a  sweated, 
overworked,  violently  resentful  and  destruc- 
tive rebel  class,"  and  that  a  social  debacle  may 
result.  The  second  possibility  is  that  the 
leisure  class  "may  become  a  Governing  Class 
(with  waster  elements)  in  an  unprogressive 
Bureaucratic  Servile  State,"  in  which  the  other 
class  appears  as  a  "controlled,  regimented, 
and  disciplined  Labour  Class."  The  third 
possibility  is  that  the  leisure  class  "may  be- 
come the  whole  community  of  the  Great  State, 
working  under  various  motives  and  induce- 
ments, but  not  constantly,  nor  permanently, 
nor  unwillingly,"  while  the  labor  class  is 

x"  Social  Forces  in  England  and  America,"  by  H.  G.  Wells, 
New  York  and  London,  1914. 

30 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

"rendered  needless  by  a  general  labour  con- 
scription, together  with  a  scientific  organiza- 
tion of  production,  and  so  re-absorbed  by  re- 
endowment  into  the  Leisure  Class  of  the  Great 
State." 

The  first  two  of  these  possible  conditions 
would  be  fatal  to  art,  one  through  anarchy 
and  loss  of  standards,  the  other  through  con- 
ventionalization. The  third  would  bring  about 
a  renascence,  after  a  troubled  period  of  con- 
flicting standards  and  of  readjustments  such 
as  we  find  ourselves  in  to-day.  The  main 
elements  in  such  a  progress  would  be,  first, 
the  gradual  refining,  deepening,  and  vitalizing 
of  the  taste  of  the  general  public  under  the 
influence  of  increasing  leisure,  health,  self- 
respect,  and  education ;  second,  the  cutting 
off  of  extravagance,  luxury,  and  faddism  in  the 
wealthier  classes  by  a  wholesome  pressure  of 
enforced  economy ;  third,  increasing  solidarity 
of  feeling  in  the  whole  social  fabric  through 
such  a  mutual  rapprochement,  giving  the  indis- 
pensable emotional  basis  for  vital  art. 

There  are  already  some  encouraging  evi- 
dences of  such  developments.  Much  pre- 
31 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

paratory  work  towards  the  formation  of  better 
standards  of  public  taste  has  been  unobtrusively 
done,  at  least  in  our  larger  cities,  by  free  lec- 
tures and  cheap  recitals  and  concerts.  Two 
disadvantages,  however,  have  often  attended 
such  work,  reducing  its  benefits.  One  has 
come  from  the  common  fallacy  that  what  is 
done  for  the  many  must  be  done  so  as  to  please 
the  many  —  a  view  often  supposed  to  be 
"democratic."  Emerson  was  more  truly  demo- 
cratic when  he  told  us  to  "cease  this  idle  prat- 
ing about  the  masses,"  and  set  about  extracting 
individuals  from  them;  for  real  democracy 
never  forgets  that  the  majority  are  always 
inferior,  and  its  aim  must  be  to  give  the  su- 
perior minority  a  chance  to  make  their  influence 
felt.  In  other  words,  to  level  down  to  the 
people  is  to  vulgarize  rather  than  to  popularize. 
Theodore  Thomas  set  a  model  for  the  conductor 
of  popular  concerts  in  the  best  sense,  for  all 
time,  when  he  replied  to  one  of  his  orchestra 
players  who  said  that  people  did  not  like  Wag- 
ner :  "Then  we  must  play  him  until  they  do." 
The  second  disadvantage  is  even  harder  to 
avoid,  even  for  administrators  of  the  highest 

32 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

standards,  because  it  seems  to  be  almost  in- 
trinsic in  this  kind  of  work.  It  comes  from 
the  passive  nature  of  the  people's  participa- 
tion. Giving  even  the  best  concerts  seems 
often  too  much  like  handing  the  people  music 
at  the  end  of  a  stick  —  "Take  it  or  leave  it"  ; 
naturally,  having  so  little  choice  in  its  selec- 
tion, they  often  leave  it;  and  even  when  they 
try  their  best  to  take  it,  they  cannot  get  so 
much  out  of  it  as  if  they  were  actively  helping 
to  produce  it.  This  is  the  reason  that  more 
active  forms  of  music-making,  even  if  crude, 
like  the  music  school  settlement  work  and 
the  community  choruses  that  have  been  mak- 
ing such  strides  in  recent  years,  seem  so  full 
of  promise.  The  singing  in  the  public  schools, 
too,  would  have  done  far  more  than  it  has, 
had  not  the  standards  been  debased,  as  Mr. 
T.  W.  Surette  has  ably  shown,1  to  the  childish 
tastes,  not  of  the  children  themselves,  who 
could  appreciate  better  things,  but  of  their 
dull  and  routine-enslaved  elders.  Yet  here 
again  we  must  beware  of  a  too  easy  optimism. 

1  In    an    article  on  Public-School  Music,  Atlantic  Monthly, 
December,  1916. 

D  33 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

There  is  no  magic  about  the  community  chorus 
that  can  suddenly  change  bad  taste  to  good. 
Too  often  we  seem  here,  as  in  all  other  activi- 
ties for  popularizing  music,  to  oscillate  help- 
lessly between  two  evils.  On  the  one  hand  is 
the  crudity  of  actual  taste :  the  majority 
prefer  rag-time  and  the  musical  comedies  to 
folk-songs  or  the  simple  classics.  On  the  other 
hand  is  the  apathy  that  comes  of  prescriptions 
from  outsiders :  musical  activity  that  is  not 
spontaneous  is  sterile.  Progress  seems  to  come 
painfully  and  uncertainly  from  a  constant 
zigzagging  between  these  two  evils,  getting 
gradually  away  from  them  as  the  taste  of  the 
minority  exercises  its  persuasiveness. 

As  for  the  wealthier  classes,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  there  are  so  far  few  evidences  of 
any  permanent  displacement  of  luxury  and 
artificiality  by  saner  and  simpler  tastes.  Yet 
there  are  even  here  one  or  two  hopeful  signs, 
of  which  the  most  conspicuous  is  the  recent 
enthusiasm  for  folk-songs.  This  is  rather  too 
good  to  be  altogether  true.  It  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve in  the  complete  sincerity  of  those  who  go 
into  the  same  rhapsodies  over  a  perfectly 

34 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

simple  and  rather  crude  peasant  song  that  a 
year  or  two  ago  they  reserved  for  the  exquisite 
day-dreams  of  Debussy  or  the  exotic  incon- 
sequentialities  of  Cyril  Scott.  Moreover,  the 
appreciation  of  folk-song,  though  a  normal  and 
indeed  indispensable  stage  in  musical  educa- 
tion, is  only  the  very  first  phase  of  initiation 
to  the  deeper  and  subtler  beauties  of  musical 
art,  and  not  a  stage  to  be  dwelt  in  with  com- 
placency. Yet  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  in  the 
measure  of  its  sincerity,  the  interest  in  folk- 
song is  of  good  augury.  It  means  concern 
with  melody,  always  and  everywhere  the  soul 
of  music,  rather  than  with  externalities  like 
orchestral  color,  or  harmonic  "effects,"  or 
quasi-poetic  associations  and  programs.  It 
means  sympathy  with  simple  and  broadly 
human,  universal  emotions,  such  as  inspire  the 
greatest  as  well  as  such  primitive  music.  It 
may  mean  the  beginning  of  a  real  and  even- 
tually a  developed  taste  for  good  music.  And 
it  is  a  good  foundation  for  such  a  rapproche- 
ment of  all  classes  of  music-lovers  as  may 
come,  we  may  hope,  with  the  coming  of  the 
Great  State. 

35 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

If  our  cursory  examination  of  the  general 
tendencies  of  our  day  reveals  no  striking  pre- 
ponderance of  good  over  bad,  shows  us  no 
movement  of  any  majority  that  we  can  acclaim 
without  qualification,  we  may  now  remind 
ourselves  for  our  comfort  that  this  has  always 
been  the  case  in  all  times,  and  that  there  is 
indeed  a  curious  illusion,  resolvable  only  by 
close  scrutiny,  that  makes  our  own  time  seem 
worse  to  us,  in  comparison  with  others,  than 
it  really  is.  We  have  to  remember  that  the 
baser  elements  of  our  own  time  make  a  much 
greater  impression  on  us,  in  relation  to  the 
finer  ones,  than  those  of  the  past.  A  living 
fool  can  make  as  much  noise  as  a  wise  man 
(if  not  far  more) ;  a  dead  one  is  silent  forever. 
The  gold  of  Beethoven's  day,  of  which  he  was 
himself  the  purest  nugget,  comes  down  to  us 
bright  and  untarnished,  so  that  we  forget  all 
the  dross  that  has  been  thrown  on  the  scrap- 
heap  of  time.  Our  own  gold  is  almost  hidden 
from  us  by  the  glitter  of  the  tinsel. 

"The  world  of  music,"  says  Sir  Charles 
Stanford,1  "is  not  substantially  different  from 

1 "  Pages  from  an  Unwritten  Diary,"  C.  V.  Stanford. 
36 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

what  it  has  been.  It  has  always  exalted  those 
of  its  contemporary  composers  who  dealt  in 
frills  and  furbelows  above  those  who  con- 
sidered the  body  more  important  than  its 
clothes.  Only  a  few  wise  heads  knew  of  the 
existence  of  Bach.  Rossini  was  rated  by  the 
mass  of  the  public  far  higher  than  Weber, 
Spohr  than  Beethoven,  Meyerbeer  than  Wag- 
ner. Simrock  said  that  he  made  Bohm  pay 
for  Brahms." 

It  is  always  necessary  to  wait  for  the  winnow- 
ing process  of  time  before  we  can  see  the  true 
proportions  of  an  age.  Hence  we  can  never 
see  our  own  age  in  its  true  proportions,  and 
since  the  second-  and  third-rate  elements  in  it 
are  ever  more  acclaimed  by  the  majority  than 
the  first-rate,  we  always  see  it  worse  than  it  is. 
We  live,  so  to  speak,  in  the  glare  of  noon-day, 
and  cannot  see  the  true  coloring  of  our  world, 
which  will  appear  only  at  evening.  Hence 
in  every  age  the  tragi-comedy  is  repeated  of 
acclaiming  the  mediocre  and  the  meretricious, 
and  ignoring  worth.  The  Gounods  always 
patronize  the  Francks.  The  answer  of  philos- 
ophy is  Emerson's : 

37 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

"  Ideas  impregnable :  numbers  are  nothing. 
Who  knows  what  was  the  population  of  Jeru- 
salem ?  'Tis  of  no  importance  whatever. 
We  know  that  the  Saint  and  a  handful  of 
people  held  their  great  thoughts  to  the  death ; 
and  the  mob  resisted  and  killed  him;  and,  at 
the  hour,  fancied  they  were  up  and  he  was 
down ;  when,  at  that  very  moment,  the  fact 
was  the  reverse.  The  principles  triumphed 
and  had  begun  to  penetrate  the  world.  And 
'tis  never  of  any  account  how  many  or  how  rich 
people  resist  a  thought." 

Our  final  question,  then,  resolves  itself  to 
this  :  Are  there  in  the  music  of  our  day,  known 
or  unknown  to  the  majority,  any  such  vital 
"thoughts,"  based  on  principles  that  a  dis- 
cerning criticism  may  see  even  now  to  have 
"triumphed  and  begun  to  penetrate  the 
world"?  Is  there  music  being  written  to-day 
which  is  modern,  not  through  its  pampering  to 
jaded  sense  or  dulled  intelligence,  but  through 
its  intuition  and  expression  of  the  deeper  emo- 
tional experience  and  spiritual  aspiration  of 
our  time  ?  Is  there  music,  in  short,  not  only 
seductive  to  the  ear  but  beautiful  to  the  mind  ? 

38 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

To  answer  such  a  question  intelligently  we 
shall  have  to  take  account  of  certain  truths 
which  the  foregoing  discussion  has  tended  to 
establish,  and  which  may  now  be  made  ex- 
plicit. Thought,  emotion,  all  that  we  call  the 
spiritual  side  of  music,  expresses  itself  not 
through  sonorous  or  harmonic  effects,  primarily 
sensuous  in  appeal,  but  through  melody  and 
rhythm  and  their  interplay  and  elaboration 
in  so-called  thematic  development.  In  truly 
great  music  we  remember,  not  such  and  such 
a  bit  of  tone-color,  not  this  or  that  sonority, 
but  the  soaring  or  tender  curve  of  the  themes, 
their  logical  yet  ever  new  unfolding,  their 
embodiment,  in  the  whole  composition,  of 
richest  variety  with  completest  final  unity. 
The  man  in  the  street  is  absolutely  right  in 
feeling  that  music  succeeds  or  fails  by  its  tunes  ; 
his  limitation  arises  in  his  conception  of  "tune." 
Again,  since  the  creation  and  manipulation 
of  great  "tunes"  or  themes,  unlike  the  hitting 
off  of  sonorous  effects  or  the  discovery  of 
rococo  harmonies,  comes  never  by  luck,  but 
only  through  a  discipline  based  on  the  assimila- 
tion of  all  that  is  best  in  music,  we  always 

39 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

find  that  all  really  fine  music  is  firmly  founded 
upon  tradition,  and  reaches  its  roots  into  the 
past,  while  blossoming,  so  to  speak,  into  the 
future.  The  artist,  despite  the  popular  sup- 
position to  the  contrary,  depends  on  his  fore- 
runners quite  as  closely  as  the  scientist.  You 
can  no  more  write  a  solid  sonata  without  know- 
ing Beethoven  than  you  can  work  efficiently 
in  biology  in  ignorance  of  Darwin.  Yet  on 
the  other  hand  this  assimilation  of  the  past 
has  to  produce,  not  an  academic  and  sterile 
complacency  with  what  is,  but  an  equipped 
and  curious  advance  upon  what  is  to  be :  the 
artist,  like  the  scientist,  brings  all  his  learning 
to  the  test  in  acts  of  creative  imagination,  leaps 
in  the  dark.  Thus  artistic  advance  may  be 
figured  as  like  the  shooting  of  frost  crystals 
on  a  window  pane ;  never  is  there  a  crystal 
that  is  not  firmly  attached  by  traceable  lines 
to  the  main  body ;  yet  no  one  can  prophesy 
whither  each  fine  filament  may  strike  out  in 
its  individual  adventure.  The  great  artist  is 
bound  to  the  past  by  love  and  docility,  to  the 
future  by  a  faith  that  overleaps  convention. 
Looked  at  in  the  light  of  these  considerations, 
40 


DEMOCRACY     AND     MUSIC 

contemporary  music  presents  a  scheme  of  light 
and  shade  somewhat  different  from  that  ordi- 
narily accepted.  If  some  high  lights  are  over- 
shadowed, others  seem  to  shine  more  brightly. 
There  is  plenty  of  hopeful  promise  for  the 
future.  Leaving  aside  the  sounder  elements 
in  Strauss  and  Debussy,  in  whom  there  is  so 
much  of  the  richness  of  decay,  we  shall  find 
the  chief  centers  of  truly  creative  activity 
perhaps  in  three  composers  who  in  their  differ- 
ing ways  and  degrees  carry  on  the  great  tra- 
dition :  Rachmaninoff  in  Russia,  Elgar  in 
England,  and  d'Indy  in  France.  Each  of 
these  men  reaches  back  roots  to  the  primal 
sources  of  musical  life  —  Bach  and  Beethoven  : 
Rachmaninoff  through  Tschaikowsky,  the  eclec- 
tic Elgar  through  Mendelssohn,  Brahms,  Wag- 
ner, and  others,  and  d'Indy  through  Wag- 
ner and  Franck.  Each,  as  we  see  in  such 
modern  classics  as  "Toteninsel,"  the  A  flat 
Symphony,  and  "Istar,"  can  create,  in  settings 
of  modern  opulence  of  color,  nobly  beautiful 
forms,  melodies  that  live  and  soar  in  a  spiritual 
heaven.  All,  too,  though  in  varying  degrees, 
move  on  as  creators  should  toward  the  un- 

41 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

known.  Here  the  Frenchman  has  perhaps, 
with  his  characteristic  lucidity  and  logic,  some- 
thing the  advantage  of  the  more  sensuous 
Slav  and  the  more  convention-beset  Anglo- 
Saxon.  Rachmaninoff,  for  all  his  warmth, 
does  not  always  escape  the  vulgarity  of  Tschai- 
kowsky,  and  Elgar  cannot  always  forget  the 
formulae  of  oratorio.  But  in  d'Indy,  with  his 
untrammeled  experimental  attitude  toward 
all  modern  possibilities,  we  have  an  influence 
destined  steadily  to  grow  and  already  clearly 
suggesting  an  epoch  combining  the  best  of  the 
old  ways  with  new  ones  at  which  we  can  for 
the  present  only  guess. 


II 

RICHARD   STRAUSS 


II 

RICHARD   STRAUSS 


HE  chronology  of  Richard 
Strauss's  artistic  life  up  to  the 
present  time  arranges  itself 
almost  irresistibly  in  the  tradi- 
tional three  periods,  albeit  in  his 
case  the  philosophy  of  these  periods  has  to  be 
rather  different  from  that,  say,  of  Beethoven's. 
"Discipline,  maturity,  eccentricity,"  we  say 
with  sufficient  accuracy  in  describing  Bee- 
thoven's development.  The  same  formula  for 
Strauss  will  perhaps  be  tempting  to  those  for 
whom  the  perverse  element  in  the  Salome- 
Elektra  period  is  the  most  striking  one ;  but  it 
is  safer  to  say  simply:  "Music,  program  music, 
and  music  drama."  Born  in  1864,  he  produced 
during  his  student  years,  up  to  1886,  a  great 
quantity  of  well-made  and  to  some  extent  per- 
sonal music,  obviously  influenced  by  Men- 
delssohn, Schumann,  and  Brahms,  and  com- 

45 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

prising  sonatas,  quartets,  concertos,  and  a 
symphony.  He  himself  has  told  how  he  then 
came  under  the  influence  of  Alexander  Ritter, 
and  through  him  of  Wagner,  Berlioz,  and 
Liszt;  how  this  influence  toward  "the  poetic, 
the  expressive,  in  music"  acted  upon  him  "like 
a  storm  wind";  and  how  the  "Aus  Italien," 
written  in  1886,  is  the  connecting  link  be- 
tween his  earlier  work  and  the  series  of 
symphonic  poems  that  follows  in  the  second 
period.  The  chief  titles  and  dates  of  this 
remarkable  series  may  be  itemized  here : 
"Macbeth,"  1886-7;  "Don  Juan,"  1888;  "Tod 
und  Verklarung,"  1889;  "Till  Eulenspiegel" 
and  "Also  Sprach  Zarathustra,"  1894;  "Don 
Quixote,"  1897;  "Ein  Heldenleben,"  1898; 
and  the  "Symphonia  Domestica,"  1903.  The 
period  of  program  music,  containing  also,  of 
course,  other  works  such  as  the  operas  "Gun- 
tram"  and  "Feuersnot,"  innumerable  songs, 
and  a  violin  sonata  strayed  from  the  first  period, 
thus  lasts  from  his  twenty-second  to  his  thirty- 
ninth  year.  Since  then  Strauss  has  devoted 
himself  chiefly  to  works  for  the  stage,  com- 
prising "Salome"  (1906),  "Elektra"^  (1908), 

46 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


"Der  Rosenkavalier"  (1911),  "Ariadne  auf 
Naxos,"  (1913),  and  "Josephs  Legende" 
(1914).  His  latest  work  is  again  in  the 
province  of  instrumental  music  —  an  "Alpine 
Symphony." 

This  rapid  survey  of  Strauss's  creative  ac- 
tivity shows  that  the  natural  bent  of  his  mind 
is  toward  the  realistic  and  dramatic  side  of 
his  art ;  it  was  only  in  his  youth,  before  he  had 
found  himself,  that  he  wrote  self-sufficing 
music ;  and  though  lyrical  power  is  shown  in 
many  of  his  songs  and  in  passages  of  almost 
all  the  orchestral  works,  yet  it  is  on  the  whole 
true  to  say  that  the  essential  Strauss  is  Strauss 
the  dramatist.  And  if  we  ask  ourselves  what 
are  the  qualities  of  temperament  requisite  to  a 
dramatist,  we  shall  find  in  Strauss's  posses- 
sion of  them  in  altogether  unusual  measure 
the  key  to  his  commanding  position  among  the 
musico-dramatists  of  our  day. 

These  qualities  are  the  same  for  a  dramatic 
artist  who  works  in  tones  as  for  one  who  works 
in  words.  First  of  all  he  must  be  a  man  of 
keen  observation,  of  penetrating  intelligence, 
able  to  note  all  that  passes  about  him  and  to 

47 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

interpret  it  with  something  of  cold  scientific 
precision.  He  must  be  able  to  seize  human 
types  and  divine  human  motives  quite  dif- 
ferent from  his  own,  as  they  are  objectively. 
He  must  resist  distorting  them  by  reading 
into  them  his  own  impulses  and  sentiments,  as 
a  man  of  more  subjective  temperament  and 
less  critical  detachment  always  does.  In  short, 
he  must  be  of  the  active  rather  than  the  con- 
templative type,  and  have  a  good  measure  of 
that  faculty  of  impersonal  intellectual  curiosity 
which  gives  a  Shakespeare  his  supreme  power 
of  objective  observation. 

But  though  he  must  not  distort  others  by 
viewing  them  through  himself,  he  must  never- 
theless interpret  them  through  reference  to  his 
own  feelings,  since  these  are  the  only  feelings 
with  which  he  is  directly  acquainted.  That 
is  to  say,  he  must  be  able  to  place  himself,  by 
sympathetic  imagination,  at  the  points  of 
view  of  those  he  studies.  Such  sympathetic 
imagination  is  so  very  different  a  thing  from 
subjective  distortion  that  without  it  no  real 
understanding  of  one's  fellows  is  possible  at 
all.  The  great  dramatist  needs,  then,  deep 

48 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


and  rich  emotion,  quite  as  much  as  the  lyric 
singer  —  but  emotion  ever  guided  by  the  sym- 
pathy which  brings  it  into  play.  It  is  this 
emotion,  guided  by  sympathetic  imagination, 
that  gives  the  very  aspect  of  life,  and  its  power 
to  move  us,  to  the  creation  that  mere  intel- 
lectual observation  alone  could  never  vitalize. 

And  finally,  the  dramatic  artist,  besides 
observing  keenly  and  interpreting  sympa- 
thetically, must  view  all  that  he  sees  with  a 
certain  magnanimous  many-sidedness,  a  sort 
of  sweet  and  mellow  wisdom,  which  is  hard 
to  describe  but  unmistakable  when  encountered. 
We  find  it  in  all  really  great  creative  artists, 
who  seem  to  view  life  not  only  keenly,  not  only 
sympathetically,  but  also  wisely  and  as  if  from 
above,  from  that  vantage  point  of  a  wider  in- 
sight than  that  of  any  of  their  subjects,  so  that 
in  their  summing  up  of  them  they  are  able  to 
set  them  in  proper  relation  one  to  another, 
and  by  so  doing  to  get  a  true  and  calm  picture 
of  human  life  as  a  whole.  This  power  of 
philosophic  or  poetic  vision,  this  magnanimity, 
we  instinctively  demand  of  the  artist.  It  satis- 
fies a  fundamental  human  craving.  The  moral 

E  49 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

in  the  fable  is  a  naive  embodiment  of  it;  it 
comes  even  into  the  uncongenial  atmosphere 
of  the  light  comedy  of  manners  in  the  rhymed 
epilogue ;  its  musical  incarnation  we  find  in 
many  of  the  quiet  codas  of  Brahms,  or  in  the 
thoughtful  "Der  Dichter  spricht"  at  the  end 
of  Schumann's  "Kinderscenen." 

The  object  of  the  present  essay  is  to  show  that 
Strauss  has,  in  unequal  but  high  degree,  these 
qualities  of  the  dramatist :  observation,  sym- 
pathy, and  magnanimity.  The  first  he  has  in 
almost  unparalleled  measure  ;  the  second  some- 
what fitfully,  sometimes  inhibited  by  his  ironic 
cynicism ;  the  third  in  his  most  genial  moods, 
as  for  instance,  in  the  epilogue  to  "Till  Eulen- 
spiegel,"  but  not  when  misled  by  over-realistic 
aims.  The  evidence  of  his  possession  of  these 
qualities  that  we  shall  especially  look  for  will 
be  not  that  afforded  by  his  acts  or  his  sayings, 
but  rather  the  irrefragable  testimony  of  his 
musical  works  themselves. 

II 

Since  a  man's  temperament  is  what  ulti- 
mately determines  the  peculiar  combination 

so 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


of  qualities  making  up  his  artistic  individuality 

—  his  characteristic  powers  and  shortcomings 

—  the  first  questions  we  have  to  ask  ourselves 
regarding  any  artist  we  propose  to  study  will 
always    be:     "What    is    his    temperament?" 
"To  which  of  the  two  great  types  does  it  be- 
long, the  active  or  the  contemplative  ?"     "Does 
its  power  lie  primarily  in  observation  or  in  in- 
trospection ?"     "Does    it   impel    him    towards 
objective   characterization   or   toward    the   ut- 
terance   of    subjective    feeling?"     Elsewhere, 
in   studying  these   antitheses   of  temperament 
in   particular   cases,    such    as     those    of  Men- 
delssohn  and   Schumann,1   and  of  Saint-Saens 
and  Franck,2  occasion  has  been  taken  to  discuss 
in  some  detail  the  rationale  of  their  musical  ex- 
pression.    At  present  our  interest  is   in  find- 
ing in   Strauss   a   rather  extreme   case  of  the 
active  temperament,   a  man  of  positively  ex- 
plosive nervous  energy. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  assemble  a  few  of  his 
characteristic  melodic  motives  to  see  that  this 
energy  naturally  translates  itself,  melodically, 

1  See  especially  "The  Romantic  Composers." 

2  In  the  essays  on  these  composers  in  "From  Grieg  to  Brahms." 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


into    wide    erratic    skips    and    incisive    abrupt 
rhythms.     Here  are  a  few  of  them : 

FIGURE  I. 
(a)  From  "Till  Eulenspiegel." 


(b)  From  "  Don  Juan." 


(c)  From  "  Ein  Heldenleben." 


(d)  From  "  Also  Sprach  Zarathustra." 


(.••)  From  the  "  Symphonia  Domestica." 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


The  chief  theme  of  the  arch  mischief-maker, 
"Till  Eulenspiegel,"  is  necessarily  capricious, 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  even  for  him  anyone  but 
Strauss  would  have  thought  of  those  surprising 
jumps,  landing  each  time  on  an  unexpected 
note.  In  the  main  theme  of  "Don  Juan"  we 
have  a  good  example  of  his  rhythmic  energy. 
Note  the  variety  of  the  figures :  the  sixteenth 
notes  in  the  first  measure,  swarming  up  to  the 
high  E ;  the  still  further  ascending  triplet ; 
the  even  more  incisive  dotted  group  leading 
to  the  emphatic  half  notes.  In  similar  general 
style  is  the  chief  theme  of  "Ein  Heldenleben," 
depicting  the  hero,  but  less  lithe,  more  burly 
and  almost  awkwardly  powerful.  The  theme 
of  "great  longing"  from  "Also  Sprach  Zara- 
thustra"  conveys  its  impression  through  the 
wide  jumps,  covering  almost  three  octaves  in 
two  vigorous  dashes.  The  theme  of  "the 
Wife,"  from  the  "Symphonia  Domestica," 
illustrates  Strauss's  love  of  turning  the  unex- 
pected way.  Notice  the  downward  jump  of 
a  ninth,  and  the  cadence  transferred  to  a  higher 
octave  than  we  expect. 

The  same  story  of  overflowing  nervous  en- 

53 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

ergy  is  told  by  two  other  characteristics  of 
Strauss's  melody.  Like  all  sanguine  natures 
he  has  more  rising  than  falling  phrases.  The 
buoyancy  of  (&),  (c),  and  (d)  in  Figure  I  is 
irrepressible  ;  (a)  has  a  falling  curve,  somewhat 
coy;  (e)  begins  in  the  same  wheedling  vein, 
but  ends  with  a  rise  of  self-confident  energy. 
A  canvass  of  all  the  motives  in  the  symphonic 
poems  would  probably  demonstrate  that  sev- 
enty-five per  cent  of  them  rise  in  pitch.  The 
second  peculiarity  is  more  subtle  but  even  more 
significant  —  a  preference  for  "rising"  or  ana- 
crustic  rhythms,  culminating  in  an  accented 
final  note  after  several  unaccented  ones,  to 
"falling"  or  thetic  rhythms  beginning  with  the 
heavy  part  of  the  measure.  The  elasticity  of 
the  rising  rhythm  is  clearly  shown  in  all  the 
excerpts  of  Figure  I  except  that  from  "Ein 
Heldenleben" ;  that,  naturally,  begins  dog- 
gedly on  the  down  beat.  Only  a  systematic 
study  can  show  the  extent  of  Strauss's  addic- 
tion to  the  rising  rhythm. 

These  considerations,  to  which  might  per- 
haps be  added  his  preference  for  the  major  to 
the  minor  mode,  and  for  the  vigorous  duple 

54 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


to  the  more  subtle  triple  meter,  afford  us  quite 
ample  internal  evidence  of  his  belonging  to  the 
temperamental  type  of  the  actives,  like  Men- 
delssohn and  Saint-Saens  (however  he  may 
differ  from  them  musically)  rather  than  to  that 
of  the  contemplatives,  —  the  Schumanns  and 
the  Francks.  To  these  positive  points  we 
might  add  negative  ones,  dealing  with  his 
emotional  shortcomings.  This,  indeed,  we 
shall  have  to  do  later,  in  the  interest  of  a  just 
critical  estimate ;  but  for  the  present  it  will 
be  better  worth  while  to  examine  the  positive 
results,  in  the  way  of  keen  observation  and 
masterly  characterization,  of  this  active- 
minded  interest  of  Strauss  in  what  lies  about 
him. 

Ill 

Strauss's  characterization  is  consummate. 
Superlatives  are  dangerous,  but  probably  no 
other  musician  has  ever  carried  to  such  a  point 
the  power  of  music  to  depict,  or  at  least,  to  sug- 
gest, varieties  of  character,  both  in  human 
beings  and  in  inanimate  objects.  Strauss's 
reported  remark  that  music  was  becoming  so 

ss 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

definite  that  we  should  soon  be  able  to  por- 
tray a  tablespoon  so  unmistakably  that  it 
could  be  told  from  the  rest  of  the  silverware 
is  probably  an  instance  of  his  sardonic  delight 
in  hoaxing  the  public ;  but  if  anyone  is  going 
to  subject  the  art  of  tones  to  this  curious  test, 
we  are  all  agreed,  doubtless,  that  it  should  be 
Strauss  himself.  Meanwhile,  failing  a  table- 
spoon, we  have  a  sufficiently  varied  collection 
of  portraits  in  his  gallery,  each  sketched  with 
a  Sargent-like  penetration. 

We  have  seen,  for  example,  in  Figure  la, 
Till  Eulenspiegel  the  arch  mischief-maker,  ir- 
repressible, incorrigible.  Here,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  Till  sentimental,  making  love  to  a 
village  maiden,  his  original  insolence  tamed 
into  a  simpering  persuasiveness,  his  theme,  at 
first  so  galvanic,  now  languishing  in  its  plain- 
tive downward  droopings  (Figure  II,  page  57). 
Later  we  see  him,  repulsed  by  the  maiden, 
storming  in  ungovernable  fury.1 

Here,  again,  belonging  to  a  quite  other  world, 
is  Don  Quixote,  "the  knight  of  the  sorrowful 

1  The  passage,  page  13  of  the  two-hand  piano  arrangement, 
page  26  of  the  orchestra  score,  is  too  long  to  quote  here. 

56 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


FIGURE  II. 
Tai"inlove. 


FIGURE  III. 

Don  Quixote,  the  knight  of  the  sorrowful  visage. 
Moderate 


57 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

visage,"  aging  and  broken,  yet  full  of  chival- 
rous and  idealistic  notions,  and  thus  at  once 
inspiring  and  pathetic  (Figure  III,  page  57). 
What  a  contrast  is  his  rascal  of  a  servant, 
Sancho  Panza,  good-natured  and  irresponsible, 
sauntering  through  life  with  a  minimum  of 
effort  and  a  maximum  of  diversion : 

FIGURE  IV. 
Sancho  Panza. 
Bass  Clarinet  and  Tenor  Tuba 


t 


Bassoons 


We  find  a  somewhat  similar  principle  of  con- 
trast, though  between  very  different  types 
of  character,  in  the  themes  of  the  husband  and 
the  wife  in  the  "Symphonia  Domestica."  The 
latter  has  been  cited  at  Figure  le.  Its  sug- 
gestion of  coy  graciousness  and  feminine  charm 
is  due  in  part  to  the  tender  downward  in- 
flections of  the  opening  figure,  and  partly  to 
the  anacrustic  rhythm  (beginning  with  unac- 
cented notes).  The  theme  of  the  husband, 

58 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


with  which  the  work  opens,  starts  out  with  an 
"inversion"  of  this  three-note  figure  of  the 
wife :  the  motives  complementary  to  each 
other,  so  to  speak,  as  if  Strauss  had  wished  to 
suggest  the  reciprocal  relation  of  marriage. 
Yet  the  rising  inflection  and  the  falling  rhythm 
of  the  husband  version  give  it  a  vigor  that  com- 
pletely differentiates  it  from  the  other,  even 
if  we  ignore  for  the  moment  the  effect  of  the 
contrasting  keys  of  F  major  and  B  major,  a 
matter  of  which  we  shall  have  more  to  say 
presently. 

The  subtlety  of  the  composer's  use  of  rhythm 
for  characterization  can  hardly  be  exaggerated. 
It  almost  justifies  the  extreme  detail  of  his 
annotator's  analyses,  as  for  example  of  Mr. 
Wilhelm  Klatte's  diagnosis  of  the  hero's  char- 
acter in  "Ein  Heldenleben."  This  reads  like 
an  old-fashioned  phrenological  chart.  Mr. 
Klatte  finds  in  his  hero  "a  genial  nature,  emo- 
tional and  vibratory"  (measures  1-6  and 
9-12  of  the  opening  theme),  a  "haughty  and 
firm  step"  (measures  6-8),  and  an  "indomi- 
table will"  (measures  13-16).  Furthermore  the 
continuation  in  B  major  and  A  flat,  Mr.  Klatte 

59 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

tells  us,  shows  that  the  paragon  has  "richness 
of  fantasy,  warmth  and  elasticity  of  feeling, 
allied  with  lightness  of  movement  —  whose 
tendency  is  always  toward  buoyancy  and 
onward  and  upward  effort,  thus  imparting  an 
effect  of  inflexible  and  well-directed  determi- 
nation instead  of  low-spirited  or  sullen  ob- 
stinacy." Mr.  Klatte  makes  a  considerable 
demand  on  our  powers  of  credence.  Yet  we 
must  be  reluctant  to  place  limits  to  a  power 
of  rhythmo-melodic  suggestion  that  can  give 
us  such  extremes  of  opposed  character  as  the 
naive  innocence  of  the  "Childhood"  motive 
in  "Tod  und  Verklarung,"  and  the  degen- 
erate superstition  and  pathological  fear  of 
Herodias,  with  her  eerie  whole-tone  scale,  in 
"Salome." 

Highly  characteristic  of  Strauss,  both  in  its 
subtle  use  of  rhythmo-melodic  characterization 
and  in  the  rather  malicious  quality  of  its  hu- 
mor, is  the  "Science"  section  in  "Also  Sprach 
Zarathustra."  This  powerful  if  over-ambitious 
work  deals  with  a  matter  that  can  hardly  be 
put  into  music,  even  by  Strauss :  with  the 
opposition,  namely,  between  the  Christian  ideal 

60 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


of  self-abnegation  and  Nietzsche's  philosophy 
of  self-fulfilment.  In  this  particular  section  of 
it  Strauss  is  trying  to  suggest  the  dustiness, 
mustiness,  and  inconclusiveness  of  "Science" 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  passions ;  this  he 
does  by  making  a  frightfully  complicated 
fugue  from  his  main  theme.  How  slyly  does 
he  here  satirize  science !  How  to  the  life  does 
his  fugue  theme,  starting  off  boldly  in  C  major 
and  square-cut  rhythm,  and  presently  wan- 
dering into  chromatic  harmonies  and  indecisive 
triplets,  symbolize  the  initial  arrogance  and 
final  futility  of  scholastic  systems  ! 


FIGURE  V. 

"  Of  Science."     Fugue  theme  from  "  Also  Sprach  Zarathustra." 

«>  r         _«k         1 


P 


T 


etc. 


61 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

In  the  use  of  harmony  for  characterization 
Strauss  is  no  less  skilful  than  in  the  more  im- 
portant matters  of  melody  and  rhythm.  The 
essential  quality  of  his  harmony  is  perhaps 
less  "ultra-modern"  than  is  sometimes  sup- 
posed. In  spite  of  the  sensational  innovations 
of  "Salome"  and  "Elektra,"  he  is  so  intensely 
German  in  feeling  and  so  well  founded  on  the 
German  classics  that  the  nucleus  of  his  har- 
monic system  is  the  diatonic  scale,  simple  and 
rugged.  One  thinks  of  such  powerful  themes 
as  that  of  "Transfiguration"  or  the  "Hero" 
as  the  essential  Strauss.  Even  "Salome"  has 
its  Jochanaan,  and  the  "Symphonia  Domes- 
tica"  is  surprisingly  diatonic.  Strauss  is  more 
nearly  related  to  the  virile  Wagner  of  "Die 
Meistersinger"  than  to  that  other  more  sen- 
suous Wagner  of  "Tristan  und  Isolde."  Of 
course,  there  are  wondrously  expressive  chro- 
matic passages  in  Strauss,  as  for  instance  the 
"Grablied"  in  "Zarathustra" ;  but  on  the 
whole  his  musical  foundation  is  tonic-and- 
dominant,  like  Mozart's,  Beethoven's,  and 
Brahms's. 

It  is  in  the  boldly  imaginative  and  uncon- 
62 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


ventional  arrangement  of  simple  material  that 
Strauss  gets  his  most  striking  harmonic 
effects.  Plain  "triads"  and  "dominant 
sevenths,"  the  small  musical  change  of  hack 
composers,  turn  to  gold  in  his  hands.  The 
touchingly  expressive  cadence  of  Don  Quixote's 
theme  will  illustrate.  The  material  is  of  the 

FIGURE  VI. 
Cadence  from  "  Don  Quixote." 


most  ordinary,  yet  the  effect  is  magical 
and  its  dramatic  appropriateness  surpris- 
ing. In  the  words  of  Mr.  Arthur  Kahn,1 
"These  confused  harmonic  windings  through 
which  the  central  chords  of  the  previously  es- 
tablished key  are  reached,  characterize  strik- 
ingly the  well-known  tendency  of  Don  Quixote 
towards  false  conclusions.  He  goes  carefully 
out  of  the  way  of  natural  sequences  and  pal- 

1  Don  Quixote,  erlautert  von  Arthur  Kahn,  Der  Musikfuhrer 
no.  148,  Leipzig. 

63 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

pable   facts,    in   order   not   to   demolish   there- 
with his  fancy  structures." 

Strauss  has  carried  this  principle  of  the  close 
juxtaposition  of  chords  more  or  less  foreign  to 
each  other,  and  even  of  different  keys,  to  greater 
and  greater  lengths  in  his  more  recent  works, 
and  to  the  effects  of  "queerness"  which  re- 
sult when  these  foreign  tonal  groups  quickly 
follow  each  other,  and  of  more  or  less  extreme 
dissonance  when  they  occur  simultaneously, 
he  owes  much  of  the  violently  adverse  criti- 
cism to  which  he  has  been  subjected.  In- 
deed, nothing  has  more  retarded  his  general 
acceptance  than  these  abrupt  transitions  and 
unaccustomed  discordancies.  The  matter  is 
of  sufficient  importance  to  intelligent  appreci- 
ation of  him  to  justify  a  brief  digression  here. 
For  any  composer  who  conceives  music  as  a 
number  of  melodies  proceeding  together  in 
greater  or  less  amity,  but  preserving  the  meas- 
ure of  independence  that  individuality  and  vig- 
orous movement  demand  —  and  Strauss  is  to 
a  peculiar  degree  such  a  polyphonic  composer 
—  a  certain  amount  of  physical  harshness  at 
moments  when  the  melodies  happen  to  clash 

64 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


is  not  only  unavoidable  but  positively  desirable, 
as  tending  to  throw  each  into  relief.  Accord- 
ing to  the  degree  of  his  experience  the  listener 
follows  the  composer  in  this  respect :  that  is, 
he  accepts  with  something  more  than  pas- 
sive endurance,  yes,  with  active  pleasure,  the 
physically  disagreeable  clashes  (dissonances) 
which  by  setting  off  the  differing  contours  of 
the  melodies  emphasize  for  him  their  mental 
and  emotional  appeal ;  but  not  —  and  the 
point  is  of  prime  importance  to  the  would-be 
music-lover  —  not  if  he  does  not  follow  the 
melodies,  that  is,  not  if  he  cannot  hear  con- 
secutively as  well  as  moment  by  moment  — 
for  it  is  only  by  following  the  threads,  so  to 
speak,  that  we  can  untangle  the  knots.  Ac- 
cordingly most  untrained  listeners  dislike,  prob- 
ably, music  that  contains  many  of  these  knots, 
the  presence  of  which  makes  it  so  interesting 
and  exciting  to  the  experienced  ear.  The 
woman  who  confessed  to  her  piano  teacher 
that  she  did  not  like  Bach's  Two-part  Inven- 
tions because  they  were  so  "ugly"  was  not  less 
cultivated  but  only  more  frank  than  many  who 
have  not  discovered  that  Bach  has  to  be  heard 
F  65 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

"horizontally"  (to  borrow  a  figure  from  musi- 
cal notation)  rather  than  "vertically." 

This  gift  of  horizontal  hearing  is  peculiarly 
necessary  to  anyone  who  would  disentangle 
the  tonal  knots  in  which  Strauss  delights, 
working  as  he  does  with  many  more  than  two 
voices  and  with  the  vast  fund  of  harmonic 
possibilities  accumulated  since  Bach's  day  to 
draw  upon.  And  he  is  not  the  man  to  use  his 
resources  timidly,  or  to  make  any  concessions 
to  laziness  or  inexperience  in  his  listeners. 
Here  is  a  reduction  of  a  passage  from  "Ein 
Heldenleben"  to  its  essential  elements. 


FIGURE  VII. 
Strings  and  Woodwind 


8  Horns 


m 


I 


Heavy  brass 


66 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


The  heavy  brass  gives  the  foundation  har- 
monies ;  the  strings  and  woodwind  have  an 
upward-moving  melody,  and  the  eight  horns 
blare  forth  at  the  same  time  a  slower-moving 
downward  melody.  If  we  read  almost  any 
single  chord  vertically,  we  shall  find  it  has  its 
measure  of  harshness,  sometimes  considerable. 
If  we  listen  to  the  coherent  voices,  none  of 
these  dissonances  will  trouble  us  in  the  least. 
This  is  a  very  simple  example  of  what  Strauss 
is  constantly  doing  in  a  far  more  complex  way.1 
It  is  a  real  difficulty  in  the  way  of  Strauss 
appreciation  that  while  only  familiarity  can 
enable  us  to  follow  the  intricate  windings 
of  the  threads  that  make  up  his  gorgeously 
rich  fabrics,  frequent  hearings  of  his  later 
and  more  complex  symphonic  poems  are  not 
to  be  had,  even  in  the  large  cities.  In  the  mean- 
while we  have  no  recourse  but  piano  arrange- 
ments, unsatisfactory  for  two  reasons.  In  the 

1  The  jump  of  the  horns  in  the  fourth  measure  illustrates  an- 
other obstacle  to  understanding  that  the  inexperienced  listener 
often  meets  in  Strauss.  He  is  quite  careless  as  to  what  register, 
high  or  low,  the  "resolutions"  of  his  dissonances  occur  in;  they 
jump  about  from  octave  to  octave;  and  the  hearer,  to  follow 
them,  has  to  be  equally  agile. 

67 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

first  place,  it  is  physically  impossible  to  play 
with  two  hands  even  a  respectable  fraction  of 
the  melodies  that  Strauss  delights  to  elaborate 
for  two  hundred ;  and  four-hand  versions  are 
better  only  in  degree,  not  in  kind.  Secondly, 
piano  versions  fail  us  precisely  in  this  matter 
of  unraveling  dissonance,  since  by  reducing  a 
colored  pattern  to  monochrome  they  diminish 
the  salience  of  the  lines  we  are  trying  to  follow, 
and  by  juxtaposing  in  one  tone-quality  tones 
that  in  the  orchestra  are  softened  by  difference 
of  timbre  they  notably  increase  the  physical 
harshness  of  the  combinations.  Obviously, 
then,  we  must  be  exceedingly  chary  of  con- 
demning Strauss,  or  any  other  composer,  for 
orchestral  dissonance  that  we  have  either  be- 
come acquainted  with  insufficiently,  or  only 
through  piano  arrangements. 

After  making  these  subtractions,  however, 
there  undoubtedly  remain  many  puzzling 
clashes  of  tone  in  Strauss's  scores,  which 
can  be  accounted  for  only  as  introduced 
either  for  color  or  for  dramatic ,  expression. 

The  use  of  dissonance  for  the  sake  of  color 
enrichment  is  a  familiar  proceeding  in  modern 

68 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


music,  especially  in  that  of  impressionistic 
type  like  Debussy's  and  Ravel's.  Such  use 
is  essentially  decorative.  To  a  more  or 
less  clearly  defined  harmonic  nucleus  are 
added  softer  tones,  clashing  with  it,  and 
thus  forming  about  it  an  aura  or  atmos- 
phere elsewhere  compared  to  the  mist  which 
softens  the  outlines  of  the  landscape.1  Strauss 
is  too  fond  of  clear  outlines  and  solid  mass  to 
employ  these  impressionistic  methods  habit- 
ually, or  even  frequently;  but  when  he  does, 
it  is  with  his  usual  skill  and  daring.  The 
theme  of  the  silver  rose  in  "Der  Rosenkavalier" 
is  the  inevitable  example :  the  last  pages  of 
the  score  are  crowded  with  those  silvery, 
scarcely  audible  triads  of  celesta  and  flutes, 
shifting  and  settling  on  the  stronger  G  major 
chord  like  snowflakes  on  a  leaf  (Figure  VIII, 
page  70). 

Delicious  as  are  these  shimmerings,  a  use  of 
dissonance  on  the  whole  more  characteristic  of 
the  masculine  nature  of  Strauss  is  the  harsher, 
more  insistent  juxtaposition  of  clashing  tones 
for  the  sake  of  their  potency  in  the  expression 

1  Essay  on  Chopin,  in  "The  Romantic  Composers." 
69 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


FIGURE  VIII. 
The  silver  rose  motive,  from  "  Der  Rosenkavalier.' 


n    HMteti 


of  the  tragic,  the  gruesome,  or  the  abnormal. 
Naturally  this  is  pushed  furthest  in  the  treat- 
ment of  such  pathological  subjects  as  "Salome" 
and  "Elektra,"  where  its  effect  is  carefully- 
enhanced  by  contrast  with  strong  or  clear  con- 
sonant harmonies  —  "Salome"  has  its  Joch- 
anaan  and  "Elektra"  its  Chrysothemis.  The 
close  juxtaposition  of  foreign  tone  groups, 
either  successive  or  simultaneous,  is  carried  to 
great  lengths  in  these  operas.  The  theme  of 
the  chattering  Jews  in  "Salome"  is  an  example 
of  the  successive,  as  is  the  curious  succession 

70 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


of  the  chords  of  F  minor  and  B  minor  at  Chryso- 
themis'  entrance  in  "Elektra."  * 

The  simultaneous  kind  was  foreshadowed  in 
the  famous  ending  of  "Also  Sprach  Zarathus- 
tra,"  where  the  woodwind  instruments  sound 
the  chord  of  B  major  against  the  softly  plucked 
C  of  the  strings;  but  we  have  to  go  to  the 
operas  again  to  find  it  carried  to  its  logical  and 
sometimes  cruel  extreme.  There  we  find  alien 
triads  marching  uneasily  together  in  double 
harness ; 2  dominant  sevenths  similarly 
shackled ; 3  and  strange  passages  in  which 
the  upper  parts  move  naturally,  but  above  a 
dislocated  bass.4  Such  procedures,  which,  it 
must  always  be  remembered,  because  of  dif- 
ferences in  tone  quality  between  instruments 
of  different  families,  sound  far  less  harsh  in 
the  orchestra  than  on  the  piano,  even  if  they 
are  no  less  queer  musically,  can  theoretically  be 
carried  to  any  extent.  How  far  Strauss  some- 
times carries  them,  a  single  example  must  suf- 
fice to  show. 

1  Vocal  score,  page  35. 

1  "Elektra,"  vocal  score,  page  21. 

1  Ibid.     Page  23. 

*  Ibid.    Page  20,  the  first  line. 

71 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

FIGURE  IX. 
Passage  from  "Elektra,"  vocal  score,  page  63. 


Whether  one  "likes"  such  passages  as  this 
or  not  is  of  course  a  question  of  taste.  But 
one  thing  at  least  is  certain :  it  will  not  do 
to  charge  Strauss  with  mere  musical  anarchy 
in  writing  them  —  his  work  as  a  whole  shows 
too  keen  a  sense  of  the  traditional  harmonic 
values.  That  aesthetic  insensibility,  posing 
as  "freedom  from  rules,"  "independence,"  "lib- 
eralism," and  the  like,  to  which  in  the  minds 
of  so  many  modern  composers  all  keys  are  the 
same,  is  happily  not  one  of  his  failings.  That 
he  has  the  keenest  possible  sense  of  the  in- 
dividual qualities  of  the  different  keys,  and  of 

72 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


the  structural  importance  of  their  interrela- 
tionships, each  one  of  his  long  series  of  sym- 
phonic poems  has  by  its  masterly  design  shown 
afresh.  How  remarkable,  for  example,  is  the 
antithesis  of  C,  minor  and  major,  and  B, 
minor  and  major,  which  is  the  constructive 
principle  of  "Also  Sprach  Zarathustra !" 
How  interesting  is  the  choice  of  F  major  for 
the  easy-going  husband  in  the  "Symphonia 
Domestica,"  and  of  the  keener,  more  brilliant 
B  major  for  the  wife !  And  how  this  strong 
tonal  sense  not  only  guides  the  design  as  a 
whole,  but  suggests  endless  charming  and 
imaginative  details  !  At  the  end  of  the  lullaby, 
in  the  same  work,  when  the  child  has  fallen 
asleep  and  the  music  has  sunk  to  a  tranquil 
G  minor  chord,  this  quietude  is  irradiated  by 
a  flash  of  B  major  and  three  notes  of  the  wife- 
theme,  —  the  loving  tenderness  of  the  waking 
and  watching  mother  over  the  sleeping  infant. 
Twice  this  happens,  and  each  time  the  som- 
nolent G  minor  returns.  Thus  does  genius 
use  tonality. 

Being  thus  brought  back  to  consider  how 
Strauss  uses  all  the  elements  of  music,   even 

73 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

this  subtlest  one  of  contrasting  tonalities,  in 
the  interest  of  characterization,  we  may  pon- 
der with  profit  one  final  interpretation  which 
might  seem  over-ingenious  had  we  not  the 
example  of  Mr.  Klatte  to  spur  our  critical 
imaginations.  Why  is  it  that  we  so  seldom 
hear  the  four  tones  of  Till  Eulenspiegel's  main 
theme  on  any  other  degrees  of  the  scale  than 
A,  F,  B,  C  ?  Why  is  it  that,  in  spite  of  the 
constant  movement  from  key  to  key  of  the 
music,  this  theme  is  hardly  ever  carried  also 
into  the  new  key  ? l  Why  does  Strauss  so  in- 
sist on  this  A,  F,  B,  C,  not  only  when  the 
music  is  in  F  major,  but  when,  as  at  Till's 
anger,  it  is  in  D  minor,  when,  as  in  the  proces- 
sion of  the  burghers,  it  is  in  A  minor,  and  when, 
just  before  the  return  of  the  main  theme,  it  is 
in  C  major  ?  Why  always  A,  F,  B,  C,  what- 
ever the  key  ?  Is  it  not  because  Till,  half- 
witted, perverse,  self-imprisoned,  is  not  subject 
to  social  influences,  and  remains  unplastically 
himself,  whatever  his  environment  ?  To  trans- 
pose a  theme  into  the  key  prevailing  at  the 

1  It  is  transposed  into  B  flat  in  the  episode  wherein  Till  dons 
the  vestments  of  a  priest. 

74 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


moment  is  to  make  order  —  but  Till  represents 
disorder.  .  .  .  Such  at  least  is  the  ingenious 
explanation  of  a  woman  who  understands 
character  as  well  as  Strauss  understands  keys. 

IV 

All  that  we  have  been  saying  so  far  has  con- 
cerned itself  primarily  with  Strauss's  powers  of 
observation  and  characterization ;  we  have 
noted  how  broad  a  field  of  human  character 
he  covers,  and  what  varied  artistic  resources 
he  brings  to  its  depiction ;  we  have  seen  how 
peculiarly  fitted  he  is  for  this  part  of  his  work 
by  his  active  temperament,  with  its  accom- 
panying intellectual  alertness  and  freedom  from 
self-consciousness.  But  we  saw  that  the  great 
dramatist  needs  not  only  observation  but 
sympathy,  in  order  that  his  work  may  be  as 
moving  as  it  is  vivid ;  and  in  this  power  of 
emotion  we  may  at  first  be  inclined  to  consider 
Strauss  deficient.  There  is  undoubtedly  a 
popular  superstition  which  puts  him  among 
the  intellectuals.  The  clean-cut  efficiency  of 
his  personality,  his  businesslike  habits,  his 
mordant  wit,  both  in  words  and  in  notes  (was 

75 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

there  ever  anything  so  witty  as  "Till  Eulen- 
spiegel"?),  even  questionably  relevant  details 
like  his  exquisitely  neat  handwriting  and  his 
well-groomed  and  not  in  the  least  long-haired 
appearance,  —  all  these  create  the  impression 
of  a  personality  by  no  means  schwdrmerisch, 
far  removed  indeed  from  the  rapt  dreamer 
who  is  the  school-girl's  ideal  composer. 

There  is  perhaps  a  measure  of  truth  in  this 
picture.  Many  of  Strauss's  most  character- 
istic merits,  as  well  as  defects,  may  be  traced 
to  his  lack  of  the  introspective  tendency  which 
has  been  so  fundamental  in  most  of  the  other 
great  German  musicians,  from  Bach  to  Wag- 
ner, and  which  is  seen  perhaps  at  its  purest 
and  best  in  Schumann.  Strauss  is  at  the 
other  pole  from  Schumann  —  and  music  is 
wide !  Mr.  Ernest  Newman,  in  the  ablest 
studies  of  Strauss  yet  published  in  English,1 
points  to  the  internal  evidence  of  this  lack  in 
his  earliest  and  therefore  least  sophisticated 
compositions.  "The  general  impression  one 

x"  Richard  Strauss,"  in  the  Living  Masters  of  Music  Series, 
and  "Richard  Strauss  and  the  Music  of  the  Future,"  in  "Musical 
Studies." 

76 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


gets  from  all  these  works,"  writes  Mr.  New- 
man, "  is  that  of  a  head  full  to  overflowing  with 
music,  a  temperament  that  is  energetic  and 
forthright  rather  than  warm  .  .  .  ,  and  a  gen- 
eral lack  not  only  of  young  mannish  sentimen- 
tality, but  of  sentiment.  There  is  often  a 
good  deal  of  ardour  in  the  writing,  but  it  is 
the  ardour  of  the  intellect  rather  than  of  the 
emotions."  And  again:  "Wherever  the 
youthful  Strauss  has  to  sing  rather  than  de- 
claim, when  he  has  to  be  emotional  rather 
than  intellectual,  as  in  his  slow  movements,  he 
almost  invariably  fails.  .  .  .  He  feels  it  hard 
to  squeeze  a  tear  out  of  his  unclouded  young 
eyes,  to  make  those  taut,  whip-cord  young 
nerves  of  his  quiver  with  emotion."1 

Now,  although  Mr.  Newman  would  not  ac- 
cept his  own  description  of  Strauss  the  youth 
as  a  fair  account  of  the  mature  composer, 
although,  indeed,  he  specifically  insists,  in  a 
later  passage,  that  Strauss's  musical  imagi- 
nation lost,  at  adolescence,  its  "first  metallic 
hardness"  and  "softened  into  something  more 
purely  emotional,"  yet  his  vivid  phrases  seem  to 

'"Richard  Strauss,"  pages  30-32. 
77 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

give  us  a  picture  of  Strauss  that  is  in  essentials 
as  true  at  fifty  as  it  was  at  fifteen.  "A  tem- 
perament that  is  energetic  and  forthright  rather 
than  warm,"  "an  ardour  of  the  intellect  rather 
than  of  the  emotions "  —  these  are  surely  still 
Straussian  characteristics.  And  what  is  more 
they  are  characteristics  that,  whatever  their 
dangers,  have  exerted  a  splendid  influence  in 
modern  music.  Schumann's  was  a  noble  in- 
trospection that  no  one  who  knows  it  can  help 
loving;  but  in  natures  less  pure  the  introspec- 
tive habit  of  German  romanticism  has  not 
always  been  so  happy  in  its  effects.  An  un- 
healthy degree  of  self-contemplation  tends  to 
substitute  futile  or  morbid  imaginings  for  the 
solid  realities  of  life;  the  over-introspective 
artist  cuts  himself  off  from  a  large  arc  of  ex- 
perience and  is  prone  to  exaggerate  the  im- 
portance of  the  more  intimate  sentiments,  and 
when,  as  in  German  romanticism,  such  a  tend- 
ency is  widespread,  a  whole  school  may  be- 
come febrile  and  erotic.  The  vapors  of  such 
confirmed  sentimentalism  can  best  be  dis- 
persed by  a  ray  of  clear,  cold  intelligence,  such 
as  Shaw  plays  through  contemporary  literature 

78 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


and  Strauss  through  contemporary  music. 
"Cynicism,"  says  Stevenson,  "  is  the  cold 
tub  and  bath  towel  of  the  emotions,  and  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  life  in  cases  of  advanced 
sensibility."  Strauss  has  administered  this 
tonic  shock  to  us,  immersed  as  we  were  in  the 
languors  of  the  Wagnerian  boudoir.  He  has 
rooted  us  out  of  our  agreeable  reveries,  sent 
us  packing  outdoors,  and  made  us  gasp  with 
the  stinging  impacts  of  crude  existence  and  the 
tingling  lungfuls  of  fresh  air.  Is  it  not  worth 
while,  for  this  vigorous  life,  to  sacrifice  a  few 
subtle  nuances  of  feeling  ? 

If  then  we  so  emphasize  his  possession  of 
the, active  rather  than  the  contemplative  tem- 
perament, it  is  not  to  blame  him  for  not  being 
a  Schumann,  but  to  render  as  precise  as  pos- 
sible in  our  own  minds  the  notion  of  what  it 
is  to  be  a  Strauss.  If  there  is  a  point  where 
blame  or  regret  must  mingle  with  our  appreci- 
ation, it  will  be  likely  to  come  not  at  the  prelim- 
inary determination  of  what  his  temperament 
is,  but  at  the  further  discovery  of  certain  ex- 
tremes to  which  he  has  allowed  his  interest  in 
externals  to  carry  him,  especially  in  his  later 

79 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

work.  And  here  we  must  try  to  set  right  a 
misconception  with  which  Mr.  Newman  leaves 
the  student  of  his  essay  on  "  Program  Music."  * 


Mr.  Newman,  wishing  to  draw  a  reasoned 
distinction  between  self-sufficing,  or  "pure," 
or  "abstract"  music  —  that  is,  music  that 
makes  its  appeal  directly  and  without  the  aid 
of  any  verbal  tag  —  and  "poetic"  music,  or, 
more  specifically,  music  with  a  definite  pro- 
gram or  title,  adopts,  seemingly  without  criti- 
cism, the  popular  notion  that  the  first  is  less 
"emotional"  than  the  second,  and  supports 
it  by  piling  up  epithets  which  beg  the  very 
question  he  is  supposed  to  be  examining.  It 
is  easy  to  "damn  a  dog  by  giving  him  a  bad 
name,"  and  it  is  easy  to  make  music  without 
program  seem  a  dry  and  academic  affair  by 
calling  it  "abstract  note-spinning,"  "mathe- 
matical music,"  "mere  formal  harmony,"  "em- 
broidery," "juggling,"  "the  arousing  of  pleasure 
in  beautiful  forms"  —  much  too  easy  for  a 
man  of  Mr.  Newman's  penetration  and  fair- 

1  In  "Musical  Studies." 
80 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


mindedness.  One  expects  this  kind  of  thing 
from  inexperienced  youths  whose  enthusiasm 
has  been  inflamed  by  the  gorgeous  color  and 
the  easily  grasped  "story"  of  such  a  work  as, 
let  us  say,  Tschaikowsky's  "Romeo  and  Juliet," 
who  have  not  had  time  to  live  themselves 
into  accord  with  the  profound  emotional  life 
of  the  great  musical  classics  such  as  Bach's 
fugues  and  Beethoven's  symphonies;  but  from 
Mr.  Newman  such  superficialities,  especially 
when  they  are  associated,  as  these  are,  with 
many  penetrating  and  true  observations,  and 
an  argument  in  the  main  convincing,  come  as 
a  surprise. 

The  central  fallacy  that  vitiates  Mr.  New- 
man's conclusions  lurks  in  his  assumption  that 
"specific  reference  to  actual  life"  necessarily 
means  greater  emotion,  and  that  the  generality 
or  "abstractness"  of  classic  music  is  a  symp- 
tom of  emotional  deficiency.  "In  the  old 
symphony  or  sonata,"  says  Mr.  Newman,  "a 
succession  of  notes,  pleasing  in  itself  but  not 
having  specific  reference  to  actual  life  —  not  at- 
tempting, that  is,  to  get  at  very  close  quarters 
with  strong  emotional  or  dramatic  expression, 

G  8l 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

but  influencing  and  affecting  us  mainly  by  reason 
of  its  purely  formal  relations  and  by  the  purely 
physical  pleasure  inherent  in  it  as  sound  —  was 
stated,  varied,  worked  out,  and  combined  with 
other  themes  of  the  same  order.  .  .  ."  And 
again :  "The  opening  phrase  of  Beethoven's 
8th  Symphony  refers  to  nothing  at  all  external 
to  itself ;  it  is  what  Herbert  Spencer  has  called 
the  music  of  pure  exhilaration ;  to  appreciate 
it  you  have  to  think  of  nothing  but  itself ;  the 
pleasure  lies  primarily  in  the  way  the  notes 
are  put  together."  To  this  a  footnote  is  ap- 
pended :  "There  is  emotion,  of  course,  at  the 
back  of  the  notes ;  the  reader  will  not  take  me 
to  mean  that  the  pleasure  is  merely  physical, 
like  a  taste  or  an  odour.  But  the  emotive  wave 
is  relatively  small  and  very  vague ;  it  neither 
comes  directly  from  nor  suggests  any  external 
existence."  Once  more,  the  assumption  that 
degree  of  emotion  is  in  a  direct  ratio  with  ex- 
ternality of  suggestion. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact  is  not  the  exact  op- 
posite the  truth  ?  Are  we  not  most  deeply 
moved  when  we  are  lifted  clean  out  of  the 
concrete  and  carried  up  to  the  universal  of 

82 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


which  it  is  only  an  example  ?  Is  not  the  general 
far  more  moving  than  the  particular  ?  Do  we 
not  feel  external  details  to  be  irrelevant  and 
even  annoyingly  intrusive  when  we  are  stirred 
to  the  recognition  of  inward  truths,  of  spiritual 
realities  ?  No  doubt  program  music  owes  to 
its  reference  to  the  particular  story,  the  well- 
known  hero,  the  familiar  book  or  picture,  a 
certain  vividness,  an  immediateness  of  appeal 
even  to  the  unmusical,  a  rich  fund  of  associ- 
ations to  draw  upon ;  but  even  program  music, 
surely,  tends  in  all  its  more  powerful  mo- 
ments to  penetrate  below  this  comparatively 
superficial  layer  of  external  facts  to  the  pro- 
founder  (and  of  course  vaguer)  emotional 
strata  of  which  they  are,  so  to  speak,  the  out- 
croppings.  It  is  odd  how  little  difference  there 
is  between  program  music  and  music,  without 
the  tag,  in  their  more  inspired  moments ;  in 
all  symphonic  poems  it  is  the  symphonic  rather 
than  the  poetic  element  that  is  chiefly  respon- 
sible for  the  effect  produced ;  and  indeed,  in- 
creasingly realistic  as  Strauss  has  become  in 
his  later  works,  even  here  the  memorable  mo- 
ments are  those  of  emotional  fulfilment  and 

83 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

realization,  in  which  we  tacitly  agree  to  let 
the  program  go  hang.  Far  from  the  "emotive 
wave"  being  proportional  to  the  suggestion 
of  "external  existence,"  then,  one  would  say 
that  it  was  rather  proportional  to  the  realiza- 
tion of  universal  spiritual  truth,  and  that  in 
systematically  confronting  us  with  ever  more 
and  more  crassly  external  existences  Strauss 
has  in  his  later  works  followed  a  practice  as 
questionable  as  the  theory  which  supports  it, 
and  levied  an  ever  greater  tax  of  boredom  on 
our  joy  in  the  finer  moments  of  his  art. 

Even  in  "Tod  und  Verklarung,"  which 
remains  to  this  day,  in  the  words  of  M.  Remain 
Rolland,1  "one  of  the  most  moving  works  of 
Strauss,  and  that  which  is  constructed  with 
the  noblest  unity,"  the  repulsively  realistic 
details  with  which  the  gasping  for  breath  of 
the  dying  man  is  pictured  consort  but  incon- 
gruously with  the  tender  beauty  of  the  "child- 
hood" passages  and  the  broad  grandeur  of  the 
"transfiguration."  The  love  of  crass  realism 
thus  early  revealed  has  grown  apace,  by  even 
steps,  unfortunately,  with  the  extraordinary 

1  "Musicians  d'aujourd'hui,"  page  123. 
84 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


powers  upon  which  it  is  parasitic.  In  the 
works  conceived  partially  in  a  spirit  of  comedy, 
to  be  sure,  such  as  "Till  Eulenspiegel"  and 
"Don  Quixote,"  it  finds  a  whimsical,  witty 
expression  for  itself  which  not  only  seldom 
strikes  a  false  note,  but  is  often  exceedingly 
amusing.  TilPs  charge  among  the  market- 
women's  pots  and  pans,  the  bleating  of  the 
sheep  in  "Don  Quixote,"  even  perhaps  the 
baby's  squalling  in  the  "Symphoma  Domes- 
tica,"  are  clever  bits  of  side  play,  like 
the  "business"  of  an  irrepressible  comedian, 
which  are  not  out  of  key  with  the  main  sub- 
stance of  the  music.  But  even  here  these 
realistic  touches  are  exuberances,  and  ines- 
sential; the  essential  thing  in  "Till,"  for  ex- 
ample, is  the  spirit  of  mischief  and  destruction 
that  existed  in  the  human  heart  for  centuries 
before  the  rascal  Eulenspiegel  was  born,  and 
that  respond  in  us  to  his  pranks ;  and  this 
essence  Strauss  expresses  in  the  purely  musical 
parts  of  his  work,  and  by  means  identical  in  kind 
with  those  employed  in  a  Beethoven  scherzo. 

And   if   realistic  detail    is   in  such  instances 
subordinate  to  musical  expression  it  may  in 

8s 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

the  treatment  of  more  serious  subjects  become 
positively  inimical  to  it.  Do  we  really  care 
very  much  about  supermen  and  "convales- 
cents" and  the  rival  claims  of  Christianity  and 
neo-paganism  when  we  are  listening  to  "Also 
Sprach  Zarathustra "  ?  Does  not  that  ever- 
lasting C-G-C,  with  its  insistence  on  an  eso- 
teric meaning  that  we  never  knew  or  have 
forgotten,  pester  us  unnecessarily  ?  What  we 
remember  in  "Zarathustra"  is  much  more 
likely  to  be  the  poignant  passion  of  the  "Grab- 
lied,"  or  the  beautiful  broad  melody  of  the 
violins,  in  B  major,  near  the  end,  which  bears 
no  label  at  all  save  the  tempo  mark  "Lang- 
sam."  Similarly,  in  the  "Symphonia  Domes- 
tica"  the  family  squabbles,  growling  father 
giving  the  replique  to  bawling  infant,  leave  us 
skeptically  detached  or  mildly  amused.  It  is 
the  musical  charm  of  the  "easy-going"  parts 
in  F  major,  the  cradle  song,  above  all  the 
largely  conceived  slow  movement  with  its 
wonderful  development  of  the  husband's 
"dreamy"  theme,  that  really  stir  us.  As  for 
"Ein  Heldenleben,"  what  an  unmitigated  bore 
are  those  everlasting  Adversaries  ! 

86 


RICHARD      STRAUSS 


Thus  in  the  later  works  Strauss's  shortcom- 
ings on  the  subjective  side,  his  native  tendency 
to  concern  himself  more  with  concrete  appear- 
ances than  with  essential  emotional  truths, 
seem  exaggerated  to  such  a  degree  as  seriously 
to  disturb  the  balance  of  his  art.  As  he  has 
interested  himself  more  and  more  in  externals 
he  has  not  entirely  evaded  the  danger  of  exalting 
the  "program"  at  the  expense  of  the  "music," 
and  his  work,  for  all  its  extraordinary  brilliance, 
its  virtuosity,  its  power,  has  become  over-em- 
phatic, ill-balanced,  hard  in  finish  and  theatrical 
in  emphasis.  It  is  ultimately  a  spiritual  defect 
that  compels  us  to  withhold  our  full  admiration 
from  "Ein  Heldenleben"  or  the  "Domestica." 
We  admit  their  titanic  power,  their  marvelous 
nervous  vitality ;  their  technical  temerities 
grow  for  the  most  part  acceptable  with  famil- 
iarity; it  is  their  emotional  unreality  that 
disappoints  us.  This  charge  of  unreality,  made 
against  realism,  may  surprise  us,  may  seem  to 
savor  of  paradox;  but  it  is  inevitable.  For 
music,  as  we  have  been  told  ad  nauseam,  but 
as  we  must  never  be  allowed  to  forget,  exists 
to  express  feeling;  the  only  truth  essential 

87 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

to  it  is  truth  to  emotion ;  and  therefore  realism, 
looking  as  it  does  away  from  inward  emotion 
to  external  fact,  ever  tends  toward  musical 
unreality. 

How  shall  we  account  for  this  progressive 
externalizing  of  Strauss's  musical  interest  ? 
Is  it  all  temperament  ?  Has  environment  had 
anything  to  do  with  it  ?  Do  those  high-sound- 
ing but  dubious  things  "modern  German  ma- 
terialism" and  its  accompanying  aesthetic  "de- 
cadence" bear  in  any  way  upon  the  matter? 
These  are  questions  too  large  for  a  humble 
annalist  of  music  to  answer.  M.  Romain  Rol- 
land,  however,  in  his  essay  on  French  and 
German  Music  in  "Musiciens  d'aujourd'hui," 
has  one  suggestion  too  relevant  to  be  neglected 
here.  "German  music,"  says  M.  Rolland, 
"loses  from  day  to  day  its  intimateness  :  there 
is  some  of  it  still  in  Wolf,  thanks  to  the  ex- 
ceptional misfortunes  of  his  life ;  there  is 
very  little  of  it  in  Mahler,  despite  his  efforts 
to  concentrate  himself  upon  himself;  there  is 
hardly  any  of  it  in  Strauss,  although  he  is  the 
most  interesting  of  the  three.  They  no  longer 
have  any  depth.  I  have  said  that  I  attribute 

88 


RICHARD      STRAUSS 


this  fact  to  the  detestable  influence  of  the 
theatre,  to  which  almost  all  these  artists  are 
attached,  as  Kapellmeisters,  directors  of  opera, 
etc.  They  owe  to  it  the  often  melodramatic 
or  at  least  external  character  of  their  music  — 
music  on  parade,  thinking  constantly  of  effect." 
One  hesitates  to  accept  so  damning  a  charge 
as  this  against  any  artist,  especially  against  a 
musical  artist,  who  above  all  others  should 
render  sincere  account  of  what  is  in  his  own 
heart  rather  than  "give  the  public  what  it 
wants."  Yet  there  is  only  too  much  in  the 
later  Strauss  that  it  explains.  How  else  shall 
we  account  for  the  exaggerated  emphasis,  the 
over-elaboration  of  contrasts  that  seem  at 
times  almost  mechanical,  and  that  suggest 
shrewd  calculation  of  the  crowd  psychology 
rather  than  free  development  of  the  musical 
thought  ?  What  else  explains  so  well  the  sen- 
sational elements  so  incredibly  childish  in  an 
art  so  mature  as  Strauss's :  the  ever-increasing 
noisiness,  the  introduction  of  wind-machines, 
thunder-machines,  and  heaven  knows  what 
diabolic  engines ;  the  appetite  for  novelty  for 
novelty's  sake  ?  And  is  there  not  a  reflection 

89 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

of  the  "saponaceous  influences  of  opera,"  as 
Sir  Hubert  Parry  so  well  calls  them,  in  the 
cloying  over-sweetness,  the  sensuous  luxury,  of 
those  peculiar  passages,  like  the  oboe  solo  in 
"Don  Juan,"  the  love  music  in  "Ein  Helden- 
leben,"  which  form  such  conventional  spots 
in  the  otherwise  vital  tissue  of  the  music  ? 
Surely  the  opera  house,  and  not  the  concert 
hall,  is  the  place  where  such  sybaritisms  natu- 
rally breed. 

For  one  reason  and  another,  then  —  tempera- 
ment, environment,  the  enervation  of  the 
operatic  atmosphere  with  its  constant  quest  of 
"effect"  —  the  fresh  and  vital  elements  in 
Strauss's  art  have  not  entirely  escaped  con- 
tamination by  more  stale,  conventional,  and 
specious  ones.  Particularly  has  he  failed  of  his 
highest  achievement  when  desire  for  immediate 
appeal,  the  bias  of  an  over-active  mind,  or  the 
fallacies  of  a  one-sided  aesthetic  have  led  him 
too  far  from  the  subjective  emotion  which  is 
truly  the  soul  of  music.  Yet  when  all  subtrac- 
tions are  made  he  must  remain  one  of  the  great 
creative  musicians  of  his  day.  His  surprising 
vigor  and  trenchancy  of  mind,  his  wit,  his  sense 

90 


RICHARD     STRAUSS 


of  comedy  (in  the  Meredithian  use  of  the  word), 
his  unerring  eye  for  character,  and,  at  his  best, 
his  sympathetic  interpretation  of  life  and  his 
broad  grasp  of  its  significance  as  a  whole,  com- 
bine to  produce  a  unique  personality.  Some 
of  the  eloquence  we  find  in  the  more  pompous 
parts  of  "Zarathustra"  or  "Ein  Heldenleben" 
posterity  will  probably  dismiss  as  bombast ; 
but  posterity  will  be  stupid  indeed  if  it  does 
not  prize  "Till  Eulenspiegel"  and  "Don 
Quixote"  as  master  expressions  of  the  spirit 
of  comedy  in  music.  "Till  Eulenspiegel" 
particularly  is  a  well-nigh  perfect  blending  of 
the  three  qualities  of  the  master  dramatist  we 
began  by  discussing.  It  combines  the  obser- 
vation of  a  Swift  with  the  sympathetic  imagi- 
nation of  a  Thackeray.  Beneath  its  turbu- 
lent surface  of  fun  is  a  deep  sense  of  pathos, 
of  the  fragmentariness  and  fleetingness  of  Till, 
for  all  his  pranks ;  so  that  to  the  sensitive  it 
may  easily  bring  tears  as  well  as  smiles.  Above 
all,  it  has  that  largeness  of  vision,  rarest  of 
artistic  qualities,  which  not  only  penetrates 
from  appearance  to  feeling,  but  grasps  feeling 
in  all  its  relations,  presents  a  unified  picture 

91 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

of  life,  and  purges  the  emotions  as  the  Greek 
tragedy  aimed  to  do.  All  is  suffused  in  beauty. 
The  prologue :  "Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a 
man,"  and  the  epilogue :  "Thus  it  happened 
to  Till  Eulenspiegel,"  make  a  complete  cycle 
of  the  work,  and  remove  its  expression  to  a 
philosophic  or  poetic  plane  high  above  mere 
crude  realism.  There  are  doubtless  more  im- 
pressive single  passages  in  later  works,  but 
it  may  be  doubted  if  anything  Strauss  has 
ever  written  is  more  perfect  or  more  tender 
than  this  wittiest  of  pieces,  in  which  the  wit 
is  yet  forgotten  in  the  beauty. 


Ill 

SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR 


Ill 

SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR 


I 


HE  most  inspiring  chapters  of 
musical  history  are  those  that 
tell  of  the  struggles  of  great  men, 
spurred  by  the  desire  for  free, 
sincere,  and  personal  speech,  to 
wrest  the  musical  language  out  of  the  triteness 
long  conventional  usage  has  given  it ;  to  make  it 
say  something  new ;  to  add,  so  to  speak,  to  the 
impersonal  organ  chord  it  sounds  an  overtone 
of  their  particular  human  voices.  This  is 
what  stirs  us  when  we  think  of  Beethoven, 
after  he  had  written  two  symphonies  in  the 
style  of  Haydn  and  Mozart,  finding  himself 
at  the  opening  of  "a  new  road,"  leading  he 
knew  not  whither,  but  irresistibly  summoning 
him ;  of  Gluck,  at  fifty,  protesting  against  the 
hollowness  of  the  Italian  operas  he  had  been 
writing  up  to  that  time ;  of  Franck,  still  older, 
finding  at  last  the  secret  of  that  vague,  groping, 
mystical  harmonic  style  he  made  so  peculiarly 

95 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

his  own.  Men  dread  liberty,  says  Bernard 
Shaw,  because  of  the  bewildering  responsibility 
it  imposes  and  the  uncommon  alertness  it  de- 
mands ;  no  wonder  that  they  acclaim  as  truly 
great  only  those  artists  who  fully  accept  this 
responsibility  and  successfully  display  this 
alertness.  And  it  may  be  suggested  that  the 
more  conventional,  and  therefore  paralyzing 
to  personal  initiative,  the  style  from  which  the 
artist  takes  his  departure,  the  more  alertness 
does  he  require,  and  the  more  credit  does  he 
deserve  if  he  arrives  at  freedom.  If  this  be 
true,  Sir  Edward  Elgar,  who,  starting  at  Eng- 
lish oratorio,  has  arrived  at  the  cosmopolitan 
yet  completely  individual  musical  speech  of 
the  first  Symphony,  the  Variations,  and  parts 
of  "The  Dream  of  Gerontius,"  is  surely  one 
of  the  great  men  of  our  time. 

For  nothing,  not  even  stark  crudity,  is  so  un- 
favorable to  artistic  life  as  the  domination  by 
a  conventional  formalism  like  that  of  the 
Handel-Mendelssohn  school  from  which  Elgar 
had  to  start.  It  may  take  a  great  artist  like 
Dvorak  or  Verdi  to  build  an  art  on  the  naivetes 
of  Bohemian  folk-song  or  the  banalities  of  Ital- 

96 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


ian  opera ;  but  to  free  an  art  from  the  tyranny 
of  drowsy  custom,  as  Elgar  has  done,  requires 
not  only  a  great  artist,  but  something  of  a 
revolutionary. 

Elgar  is  English  in  character,  but  cosmopoli- 
tan in  sympathies,  style,  and  workmanship. 
In  other  words,  while  retaining  the  personal 
and  racial  quality  natural  to  all  sincere  art,  he 
has  been  magnanimous,  intelligent,  and  un- 
conventional enough  to  break  through  the 
charmed  circle  of  insularity  which  has  kept  so 
many  English  composers  from  vital  contact 
with  the  world.  Such  insularity  cannot  but 
be  fatal  to  art.  It  is  bad  enough  when  it  con- 
fines the  artist  to  narrow  native  models.  It  is 
even  worse  when,  ignoring  native  music  of  the 
finest  quality,  such  as  that  of  Purcell,  it  follows 
blindly,  through  timidity  or  inertia,  traditions 
imported  by  foreigners  of  inferior  grade.  Gen- 
erations of  English  musicians  have  stultified 
themselves  in  imitating  Handel's  burly  ponder- 
ousness  and  Mendelssohn's  somewhat  vapid 
elegance.  They  have  turned  a  deaf  ear,  not 
only  to  the  greater  contemporaries  of  these  idols 
—  to  Bach  and  to  Schumann  —  but  also  to  the 

H  97 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

more  modern  thought  of  Wagner,  Franck, 
Tschaikowsky,  and  Brahms.  They  have  been 
correct  and  respectable  in  an  art  which  lives 
only  through  intense  personal  emotion.  They 
have  narrowed  their  sympathies.  They  have 
been  national  in  an  age  of  dawning  interna- 
tionalism. 

Elgar,  on  the  contrary,  together  with  a  few 
others  whose  work  deserves  to  be  better  known 
than  it  is,  has  had  the  courage  to  aspire  to  a 
cosmopolitan  breadth  of  style.  He  has  made 
up  for  the  lack  of  what  are  called  "educational 
advantages"  by  something  far  more  valuable 
—  an  insatiable  intellectual  curiosity.  Self- 
taught  except  for  a  few  violin  lessons  in  youth, 
he  has  been  all  his  life  a  tireless  listener,  ob- 
server, and  student.  When  he  was  a  boy, 
having  no  text-books  on  musical  form,  he  wrote 
a  whole  symphony  in  imitation  of  Mozart's 
in  G  minor,  "following  the  leader"  with  ad- 
mirable and  fruitful  docility.  As  a  youth  he 
would  play  violin,  at  the  last  desk  oftentimes, 
in  any  orchestra  to  which  he  could  gain  admis- 
sion, for  the  sake  of  the  experience;  and  be- 
tween rehearsals  would  laboriously  collate  the 

98 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


instrumental  parts  to  find  out  why  a  certain 
passage  sounded  well  or  ill.  He  would  travel 
two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  London,  from 
his  home  in  Worcester,  to  hear  a  Crystal 
Palace  Saturday  concert,  returning  late  at 
night.  Knowing  well  that  any  potent  indi- 
viduality like  his  own  grows  by  what  it  as- 
similates, he  has  had  none  of  the  small  man's 
fear  of  injuring  by  the  study  of  others  his 
"individuality."  The  internal  evidence  of  his 
works  shows  that  there  are  few  modern  scores 
he  has  left  unpondered  ;  yet  no  living  composer 
has  a  more  unmistakably  personal  style  than 
his. 

His  intellectual  activity  has  by  no  means 
confined  itself  to  music.  He  has  always  been 
an  omnivorous  reader.  And  while  much  of 
this  reading  naturally  proceeded  in  desultory 
fashion,  for  the  sake  of  relaxation,  and  took 
him  sometimes  as  far  afield  as  Froissart,  the 
fourteenth-century  French  chronicler,  as  sug- 
gested by  his  early  overture  of  that  name,  he 
has  never  lost  the  power  of  concentration,  and 
can  study  a  book  to  as  good  purpose  as  a  score. 
His  analytic  notes  to  his  symphonic  study 

99 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

"Falstaff"  (1913)  reveal  a  surprisingly  de- 
tailed knowledge  both  of  Shakespeare  and  of 
Shakespeare's  commentators.  Science  also 
interests  him,  and  for  some  years  his  hobby 
was  scientific  kite-flying.  He  is  of  the  nerv- 
ously irritable  temperament  so  often  coupled 
with  mental  alertness,  walks  about  restlessly 
while  conversing,  and  detests  all  routine  work 
like  teaching.  "To  teach  the  right  pupil  was 
a  pleasure,"  he  once  said,  "but  teaching  in 
general  was  to  me  like  turning  a  grindstone 
with  a  dislocated  shoulder."  In  1889  he 
married,  gave  up  most  of  his  teaching,  and 
moved  to  London.  Since  then  he  has  lived 
partly  among  his  native  Malvern  Hills,  partly 
near  London,  but  has  devoted  himself  almost 
entirely  to  composing  and  conducting. 

Elgar's  whole  life  has  thus  been  a  gradual 
and  progressive  self-emancipation  from  the 
limitations  of  inherited  style,  an  escape  from 
habit  to  initiative,  from  formality  to  eloquence, 
from  insularity  to  cosmopolitanism.  Nor  has 
this  progress  been  the  less  inspiring  in  that  it 
has  been  spasmodic,  subject  to  interruptions, 
and  never  complete.  In  that  respect  it  shares 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


the  lovable  imperfection  of  all  things  human. 
It  has  been  instinctive  rather  than  reasoned, 
has  proceeded  largely  by  trial  and  error,  and 
has  counted  among  its  experiments  almost  as 
many  failures  as  successes.  There  are  com- 
monplace pages  in  almost  everything  Elgar 
has  written,  unless  it  be  the  "Enigma"  Varia- 
tions. But  the  important  point  is  that  how- 
ever much,  in  moments  of  technical  inattention 
or  emotional  indifference,  he  may  fall  back  into 
the  formulae  of  his  school,  he  has  at  his  best 
left  them  far  behind,  and  made  himself  the 
peer  of  his  greatest  continental  contemporaries 
in  wealth  and  variety  of  expression  —  of  such 
men  as  Strauss  in  Germany  and  d'Indy  in 
France. 

What  are  these  never-quite-ejected  formulae, 
lurking  in  Elgar's  brain,  ever  ready  to  guide 
his  pen  when  for  a  moment  he  forgets  to  think 
and  feel  ?  If  we  look  at  the  opening  chorus 
of  "The  Black  Knight,"  written  in  1893,  and 
numbered  opus  25,  we  shall  get  a  working  notion 
of  them  (Figure  X,  page  102). 

How  this  passage  calls  up  the  atmosphere 
of  the  typical  English  choral  festival :  the 

101 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

FIGURE  X. 
Opening  chorus  from  "  The  Black  Knight." 

Allegro  maestoso 

A  3 


unwieldy  masses  of  singers,  the  scarcely  less 
unwieldy  orchestra  or  organ,  the  ponderous 
movement  of  the  music,  half  majestic,  half 
tottering,  as  of  a  drunken  elephant,  the  well- 
meaning  ineptitude  of  the  expression,  highly 
charged  with  good  nature  but  innocent  of 
nuance !  There  is  the  solid  diatonic  har- 
mony, conscientiously  divided  between  the  four 
equally  industrious  parts.  There  is  the  thin 
disguising  of  the  tendency  of  this  hymn-tune 
type  of  harmony  to  sit  down,  so  to  speak,  on 
the  accent  of  each  measure,  by  a  few  con- 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


ventional  suspensions.  There  is  the  attempt 
to  give  the  essentially  stagnant  melody  a 
specious  air  of  busyness  by  putting  in  a  triplet 
here  and  a  dot  or  short  rest  there.  And  there 
is  the  sing-song  phraseology  by  which  a  phrase 
of  four  measures  follows  a  phrase  of  four 
measures  as  the  night  the  day.  In  short,  there 
is  the  perfectly  respectable  production  of  music 
by  the  yard,  on  the  most  approved  pattern, 
undistorted  by  a  breath  of  personal  feeling  or 
imagination. 

How  far  Elgar,  whenever  his  imagination  is 
stirred,  can  get  away  from  this  conventional 
vacuity,  even  without  departing  materially 
from  its  general  idiom,  may  as  well  be  shown 
at  once,  for  the  sake  of  the  illuminating  con- 
trast, by  the  quotation  of  a  bit  of  genuine 
Elgar  —  the  "Nimrod"  in  the  "Enigma"  Va- 
riations, opus  36  (1899). 

This  touching  tribute  to  a  friend  of  the  com- 
poser, Mr.  A.  J.  Jaeger  (the  English  equiva- 
lent of  whose  name,  hunter,  suggested  the  title), 
has  all  the  serious  thoughtfulness,  the  tender- 
ness coupled  with  aspiration,  the  noble  plain- 
ness, that  belong  to  Elgar  at  his  best.  And 

103 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

FIGURE  XL 

"Nimrod,"  from  the  "Enigma  Variations." 
Adagio 


it  is  a  striking  fact  that  the  originality  of  the 
passage  (for  no  one  but  Elgar  could  have 
written  it)  is  due  to  subtle,  almost  unanalyzable 
qualities  in  the  mode  of  composition  rather 
than  to  any  unusual  features  of  style.  The 
harmonic  style,  indeed,  is  quite  the  same  simple 
diatonic  one  as  that  of  "The  Black  Knight" 
chorus,  showing  that,  in  music  as  in  literature, 
noble  poetry  can  be  made  from  the  same  ma- 
terials as  doggerel.  There  is  the  same  pre- 
dominance of  simple  triads  and  seventh  chords, 
especially  the  more  rugged  sevenths,  for  which 
Elgar  has  a  noticeable  fondness ;  the  same 

104 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


frequent  use  of  suspensions,  though  here  it  is 
dictated  by  emotion  rather  than  by  custom ; 
the  same  restless  motion  of  the  bass,  one  of  the 
hall-marks  of  Elgar's  style.  The  melody,  how- 
ever, shows  a  tendency  to  large  leaps,  often 
of  a  seventh,  in  alternating  directions,  giving 
its  line  a  sharply  serrated  profile.  This,  it 
may  be  noted,  is  also  one  of  the  outstanding 
features  of  his  more  personal  thought.  But 
above  all  should  be  observed  the  rhythmic 
flexibility  that  here  takes  the  place  of  sing- 
song —  the  free  sweep  of  the  line,  scorning  to 
rest  on  the  accents,  soaring  through  its  long 
continuous  flight  like  a  bird  in  a  favoring  gale. 
We  have  here,  then,  the  vein  of  expression 
at  once  plain,  serious,  and  noble,  which  makes 
Elgar  at  his  best  both  English  and  universal. 
It  recurs  frequently  throughout  the  whole  body 
of  his  work:  in  the  "Go  forth"  chorus  in 
"Gerontius,"  so  finely  used  in  the  prelude; 
in  the  theme  of  the  Variations ;  in  the  funda- 
mental theme  of  the  first  Symphony,  which 
dominates  the  entire  work  and  in  which 
Elgar  reaches  perhaps  his  most  exalted  utter- 
ance; in  the  themes  of  the  slow  movement  of 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

the  same  symphony;  and  in  another  way  in 
the  Prince  Hal  theme  of  "Falstaff."  Some 
may  feel  that  this  is  the  essential  Elgar.  Yet 
there  is  also  in  this  quiet  Englishman  a  pas- 
sionate mysticism,  a  sense  of  subtle  spiritual 
experience,  which  has  urged  him  to  develop 
progressively  quite  another  mode  of  musical 
speech.  On  this  side  he  is  related  to  Wagner 
and  to  Cesar  Franck.  Like  them  he  has 
realized  that  there  is  a  whole  range  of  feeling, 
inaccessible  to  the  diatonic  system  of  har- 
mony, that  can  be  suggested  by  harmony 
based  on  the  chromatic  scale,  and  even  more 
vividly  and  subtly  by  a  harmonic  system  that 
opens  up  a  path  between  all  the  keys,  that 
makes  them  all  available  together  —  by  what 
we  may  call,  in  short,  "polytonal"  harmony. 
This  polytonal  harmonic  system  is  common 
to  "Tristan  und  Isolde,"  to  Franck's  "Les 
Beatitudes,"  to  much  of  Chopin,  and  to  many 
parts  of  "The  Dream  of  Gerontius,"  however 
much  they  may  differ  in  other  respects. 

Elgar    began    early    to    experiment    in    this 
direction.     Even  in  "The  Black  Knight,"  for 

example,  at  the  word  "rock"  in  the  lines 

106 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


When  he  rode  into  the  lists 
The  castle  'gan  to  rock, 

we  have  the  following  progression,  equally 
striking  from  the  musical  and  the  dramatic 
point  of  view  : 

FIGURE  XII. 

From  "  The  Black  Knight." 
Allegro  molto  e  con  fuoco 


This  is  what  Mr.  Carl  W.  Grimm  has  well 
named  a  "modulating  sequence";  that  is, 
each  unit  group  of  harmony  (in  this  case  a 
measure  in  length)  is  the  sequential  repetition 
of  the  preceding,  yet  the  chromatic  texture  is 
so  managed  that  each  begins  in  a  new  key; 
the  total  effect  is  thus  much  more  novel  and 
exciting  than  is  that  of  the  traditional  mono- 
tonal  sequence.  Yet,  as  Mr.  Stillman-Kelley 
has  pointed  out  in  a  closely  reasoned  essay,1 

1 "  Recent  Developments  in  Musical  Theory,"  by  Edgar 
Stillman-Kelley.  The  Musical  Courier,  July  I  and  8,  1908. 

107 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

however  ingenious  may  be  the  arrangement  of 
the  modulating  sequence  on  the  harmonic  side, 
it  is  liable  to  the  same  fault  that  besets  the 
monotonal  sequence  —  that  is,  rhythmic  monot- 
ony. Once  we  have  the  pattern,  we  know 
what  to  expect;  and  if  the  composer  gives  us 
exactly  what  we  expect  the  effect  is  too  obvious, 
and  we  are  bored.  It  is  precisely  by  his  avoid- 
ance of  this  literal  repetition,  says  Mr.  Kelley, 
that  Wagner,  in  such  a  modulating  sequence  as 
that  of  the  Pilgrims'  Chorus,  maintains  both 
the  rhythmic  and  the  harmonic  vitality  of  the 
music. 

Judged  by  the  standard  thus  suggested,  the 
sequence  on  the  word  "rock"  is  seen  to  be  too 
literally  carried  out.  The  pattern  is  applied 
with  the  mechanical  regularity  of  a  stencil, 
necessarily  with  an  equally  mechanical  result. 
It  must  be  said  in  the  interest  of  just  criticism 
that  Elgar  frequently  falls  into  this  fault. 
Even  Gerontius'  cry  of  despair,  so  magnificently 
developed  by  the  orchestra,  contains  less  of 
subtle  variety  than  is  given  to  that  curiously 
similar  cry  of  Amfortas  in  "Parsifal"  by  the 
"inversion"  of  the  parts,  while  the  priest's 

108 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


adjuration  to  his  departing  soul *  and  the 
chorus  afterward  based  on  it,  become  irritat- 
ingly  monotonous  through  the  literal  repetition 
of  a  pattern  admirable  in  itself.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Development  in  the  first  move- 
ment of  the  second  Symphony  there  is  a  passage 
illustrating  the  same  fault.  The  tonal  and 
harmonic  coloring  here  are  singularly  impres- 
sive, and  quite  original;  as  Mr.  Ernest  New- 
man remarks  in  his  analysis:2  "A  new  and 
less  sunny  cast  has  come  over  the  old  themes. 
.  .  .  The  harmonies  have  grown  more  mys- 
terious ;  the  scoring  is  more  veiled ;  the  dynam- 
ics are  all  on  a  lower  scale."  Everything 
favors,  in  fact,  a  most  impressive  effect  except 
the  structure;  but  that,  through  its  over- 
literal  application  of  the  modulating  sequence, 
almost  jeopardizes  the  whole. 

Fortunately,  however,  happier  applications 
of  this  harmonically  so  fruitful  device  are  not 
far  to  seek  in  Elgar's  scores,  especially  the 
later  ones.  The  following  theme  from  "The 
Apostles,"  appropriately  marked  "mistico,"  is 

1  Vocal  score,  page  39. 
1  Musical  Times,  London,  May  i,  1911. 
109 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


a  fine  example  of  the  kind  of  mysticism  that 
is  not  unmindful  of  the  needs  of  the  body  and 
of  the  intelligence  as  well  as  of  the  soul. 

FIGURE  XIII. 

In  the  Mountain,  —  Night.     From  "  The  Apostles." 
Adagio      ^        ^^      ^-v        ^C     ^T" 


>*-e 


ff 


/'  i"i  «' 


3s& 


I  "k  I  1 


f 


The  principle  is  still  that  of  the  modulating 
sequence,  but  the  application  is  here  not  me- 
chanical but  freely  imaginative.  Two  of  the 
one-measure  units  are  in  each  phrase  balanced 
by  a  unit  twice  as  long,  so  that  the  rhythm 
is  as  a  whole  far  more  organic  than  in  our 
earlier  examples  of  sequences.  Furthermore 
the  purely  harmonic  treatment  makes  use  of  un- 
foreseeable relations,  so  that  the  effect  of  stere- 


IIO 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


otype  is  successfully  evaded.  Finally,  here  is 
a  theme  from  the  second  symphony  in  which 
the  sequential  principle  is  still  further  veiled, 
so  far  as  harmony  is  concerned.  The  har- 
monic progressions  seem  here  to  "shoot,"  so 
to  speak,  with  complete  spontaneity;  we  can- 
not anticipate  whither  the  next  move  will  take 
us,  and  we  get  constantly  to  interesting  new 
places ;  yet  the  unity  of  the  whole,  beginning 
and  ending  in  E-flat *,  prevents  any  sense  of 
aimless  wandering. 

FIGURE  XIV. 
Theme  from  Symphony  No.  2. 


1  Is  not  Mr.  Newman  mistaken  in  stating  that  this  theme  be- 
gins in  G  major  ? 

in 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

The  alert  student  will  probably  still  feel, 
nevertheless,  perhaps  without  being  able  to 
account  in  any  way  for  his  impression,  that 
even  in  these  last  excerpts  there  is  an  unsatis- 
factory element,  a  something  that  keeps  them 
on  a  lower  level  of  art,  for  all  their  opaline 
color,  than  that  of  the  forthright  and  trans- 
parent "Nimrod."  This  something,  perhaps 
on  the  whole  Elgar's  most  ineradicable  fault, 
is  rhythmical  "short  breath."  He  gets  away 
from  it,  to  be  sure,  in  all  his  finest  pages ;  but 
except  when  his  imagination  is  deeply  stirred 
his  melodic  line  shows  the  dangerous  tendency 
to  fall  into  short  segments,  a  measure  or  two 
in  length,  into  a  configuration  of  scallops,  so 
to  speak,  rather  than  wide  sweeps,  exemplified 
in  the  three  last  illustrations.  Instead  of 
flying,  it  hops.  Examples  will  be  found  right 
through  his  works,  from  the  second  theme  of 
the  early  overture  "Froissart"  to  that  of  the 
first  movement  of  the  Violin  Concerto,  opus  61. 

FIGURE  XV. 
Second  theme  from  "  Froissart." 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


Second  theme  of  first  movement  of  Violin  Concerto. 


ini       n 


This  kind  of  sing-songiness  is  as  fatal  to  noble 
rhythm  in  music  as  it  is  in  poetry  —  in  much 
of  Longfellow,  for  example;  and  the  frequency 
with  which  Elgar  relapses  into  it  suggests  that 
he  has  some  of  the  same  fatal  facility,  the 
tendency  to  talk  without  thinking,  which  so 
often  kept  the  American  poet  below  his  best. 
The  parallel  might  be  carried  out,  if  it  were 
worth  while,  in  some  detail.  Both  men  wrote 
too  much,  and  both  are  "popular"  in  the  bad 
sense  as  well  as  the  good.  The  "Pomp  and 
Circumstance"  Marches  are  saved,  despite 
the  frequent  triteness  of  their  melody,  by  their 
buoyant  high  spirits ;  but  of  the  vapid  and 
sentimental  "Salut  d'Amour,"  which  has  sold 
in  the  thousands  and  been  arranged  for  all 
possible  combinations  of  instruments,  includ- 
ing two  mandolins  and  a  guitar,  the  less  said 
the  better.  Yet  it  is  noteworthy  that  the 
very  tendency  to  an  over-obvious,  monotonous 
i  113 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

rhythmic  scheme  which  works  for  the  popu- 
larity of  a  small  piece  with  the  thoughtless 
and  trivial-minded,  works  against  it  in  the  case 
of  a  larger  composition  which  appeals  to  the 
musically  serious,  and  wins  its  way  gradually 
at  best.  Thus  Elgar's  second  symphony,  which 
suffers  much  more  from  this  besetting  fault 
than  the  first,  has  been  less  popular  for  that 
very  reason.  Statistics  are  significant  in  such 
cases.  The  second  symphony  was  played 
twenty-seven  times  before  it  was  three  years 
old,  a  considerable  number  for  so  serious 
a  work 1 ;  but  the  first,  called  by  Nikisch 
"Brahms's  Fifth,"  a  compliment  which  could 
be  paid  to  few  other  modern  symphonies  with- 
out absurdity,  achieved  the  almost  incredible 
record  of  eighty-two  performances  in  its  first 
year,  in  such  widely  scattered  places  as  London, 
Vienna,  Berlin,  Leipsic,  Bonn,  St.  Petersburg, 
Buda  Pest,  Toronto,  Sydney,  and  the  United 
States.2 

Of  course  it  is  not  intended  to  account  for 
the   wide   favor   accorded    this    symphony   by 

1  Musical  Times,  January,  1914. 

2  Musical  Times,  January,  1909. 

114 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


adducing  so  technical  a  matter,  from  one  point 
of  view,  as  its  comparative  freedom  from  a 
rhythmic  weakness  to  which  its  composer  is  un- 
fortunately peculiarly  subject.  What  is  meant 
is  simply  that  sing-song  balance  of  short  phrases 
is  often  a  symptom  of  superficial  feeling,  and 
that,  per  contra,  elastic,  vigorous,  and  im- 
aginative rhythms  are  a  constant  result,  and 
therefore  a  reliable  evidence,  of  the  emotional 
ardor  that  makes  a  piece  of  music  live.  The 
A-flat  Symphony  is  a  work  intensely  felt  by 
the  composer,  a  work  that,  coming  from  his 
heart,  finds  its  way  to  the  hearts  of  others. 
And  in  this  respect,  in  its  emotional  sincerity, 
earnestness,  and  subjectivity,  it  differs  from 
his  other  works  more  in  degree  than  in  kind. 
For  in  everything  Elgar  writes  there  is  the 
preoccupation  with  inner  feeling  which  we  find 
in  such  a  composer  as  Schumann,  but  from 
which  most  of  our  contemporaries  have  turned 
away.  Elgar  is  an  introspective  musician,  not  an 
externally  observant  tone-painter  like  Strauss. 
It  is  noteworthy  how  completely  his  treatment 
of  death,  for  example,  in  "The  Dream  of 
Gerontius,"  differs  from  that  of  Strauss  in 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

"Tod  und  Verklarung."  By  no  means  acci- 
dental is  it,  but  highly  significant  of  the  op- 
posed attitudes  of  the  two  artists,  that  while 
Strauss  emphasizes  the  external  picture  — 
the  panting  breath,  the  choking  cries  —  Elgar 
penetrates  to  the  inward  emotional  state.  He 
has  written  surprisingly  little  program  music. 
Aside  from  a  few  realistic  touches  scattered 
through  the  choral  works,  and  the  delicate 
little  vignette  of  the  friend  at  sea  in  the 
"Enigma"  Variations,  there  is  only  "Falstaff" 
—  and  that  deals  more  with  character  than 
with  picture.  In  this  respect  Elgar  deserves 
well  of  his  contemporaries  for  standing  against 
a  popular  but  dangerous  tendency  to  externalize 
the  most  inward  of  the  arts,  and  for  showing 
that  even  in  the  twentieth  century  the  spiritual 
drama  set  forth  in  a  work  of  pure  music,  like 
his  first  symphony,  can  be  as  thrilling  as  those 
that  have  made  immortal  Beethoven's  later 
quartets  and  sonatas. 

That  this  attitude  indicates  a  preference 
rather  than  a  limitation  is  proved  by  the 
felicity  of  the  external  characterization  in 
passages  scattered  all  through  the  choral 

116 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


works,  as  for  instance  the  setting  of  the  line 
"The  castle  'gan  to  rock,"  cited  above,  from 
the  "Black  Knight,"  the  music  of  the  devils 
in  "Gerontius,"  or  the  scene  in  "The  Apostles" 
where  Peter  walks  upon  the  water,  and  even 
more  strikingly  in  "Falstaff,"  the  composer's 
single  contribution  to  program  music.  Here 
he  frankly  takes  the  Straussian  attitude,  and 
skilfully  uses  the  Straussian  methods.  Lead- 
ing themes,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  analysis,1  depict 
the  fat  knight,  one  "in  a  green  old  age,  mellow, 
frank,  gay,  easy,  corpulent,  loose,  unprincipled, 


FIGURE  XVI. 
Three  of  the  "  Falstaff  "  themes. 


Allegro 


Grandiose  6  laramente 


1  Musical  Times,  September,  1913. 

117 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

and  luxurious"  (a);  another  "cajoling  and 
persuasive"  (b) ;  and  a  third  in  his  mood  of 
"boastfulness  and  colossal  mendacity"  (c). 

These  portraits  evidently  belong  to  the  same 
gallery  as  Strauss's  Don  Quixote,  Sancho 
Panza  (cf.  the  first  quotation),  Till  Eulen- 
spiegel,  and  others ;  they  are  sketched  in  the 
same  suggestive  and  telling  lines ;  in  the  third 
there  is  even  the  same  touch  of  caricature. 
The  picture  of  Eastcheap,  too,  where,  "among 
ostlers  and  carriers,  and  drawers,  and  merchants, 
and  pilgrims  and  loud  robustious  women,  Fal- 
staff  has  freedom  and  frolic,"  has  something  of 
the  German  composer's  brilliant  externality. 
It  should,  as  Elgar  says  in  his  notes,  and  it 
does,  "chatter,  blaze,  glitter,  and  coruscate." 
Yet,  vivid  as  all  this  is,  even  here  from  time  to 
time,  notably  in  the  two  "interludes,"  the 
composer  characteristically  withdraws  from 
the  turbulent  outer  world  he  has  conjured  up, 
to  brood  upon  its  spiritual  meaning ;  and  it  is 
noteworthy  that  after  stating  in  his  analysis 
that  "some  lines  quoted  from  the  plays  are 
occasionally  placed  under  the  themes  to  indi- 
cate the  feeling  to  be  conveyed  by  the  music," 

118 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


he  immediately  adds,  "but  it  is  not  intended 
that  the  meaning  of  the  music,  often  varied 
and  intensified,  shall  be  narrowed  to  a  corollary 
of  these  quotations  only."  This  intensifica- 
tion arises,  of  course,  through  the  universalizing 
of  all  the  particulars  by  the  power  of  music  to 
express  pure  emotion. 

The  same  instinctive  leaning  to  introspec- 
tion is  curiously  shown  in  the  Enigma  Varia- 
tions.1 "I  have  in  the  Variations,"  writes 
Elgar  in  a  private  letter,  "sketched  portraits 
of  my  friends  —  a  new  idea,  I  think  —  that  is, 
in  each  variation  I  have  looked  at  the  theme 
through  the  personality  (as  it  were)  of  another 
Johnny."  The  idea  was  not  indeed  quite 
new,  however  originally  applied,  as  Schumann 
had  already  sketched  a  number  of  his  friends  in 
the  "Carnaval."  But  what  is  of  much  greater 
import  is  that  Schumann  and  Elgar,  both 
introspective  temperaments,  go  about  this  busi- 
ness of  portrait  painting  in  the  same  char- 
acteristic way  —  not  by  recording  the  external 
aspects  of  these  "other  Johnnies,"  but  by 

1  Arranged  for  piano  by  the  composer.  Novello,  Ewer,  and 
Company,  London. 

119 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

sympathetically  putting  themselves  at  their 
points  of  view  and  becoming,  so  to  speak,  the 
spokesmen  of  their  souls.  The  tender  intimate- 
ness  of  Elgar's  interpretations  is  their  supreme 
charm.  Whatever  the  character  portrayed, 
whether  the  tender  grace  of  C.  A.  E.  (Lady 
Elgar),  the  caprice  of  H.  D.  S-P.,  the  virile 
energy  of  W.  M.  B.,  the  gossamer  delicacy  of 
Dorabelle,  or  the  nobility  of  "Nimrod,"  we 
feel  in  each  case  that  we  have  for  the  moment 
really  got  inside  the  personality,  and  looked 
at  the  world  along  that  unique  perspective. 
Even  in  the  indescribably  lovely  Romanza, 
Variation  XIII,  calling  up  the  thought  of  a 
friend  at  sea,  though  programistic  devices  are 
used,  the  spirit  looks  away  from  externalities. 
Violas  in  a  quietly  undulating  rhythm  suggest 
the  ocean  expanse  ;  an  almost  inaudible  tremolo 
of  the  drum  gives  us  the  soft  throb  of  the 
engines ;  a  quotation  from  Mendelssohn's 
"Calm  Sea  and  Prosperous  Voyage,"  in  the 
dreamy  tones  of  the  clarinet,  completes  the 
story.  Yet  "story"  it  is  not  —  and  there  is 
the  subtlety  of  it.  Dim  sea  and  dream-like 
steamer  are  only  accessories  after  all.  The 

120 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


thought  of  the  distant  friend,  the  human  soul 
there,  is  what  gently  disengages  itself  as  the 
essence  of  the  music. 

In  his  two  symphonies  the  composer  gives 
us  even  less  encouragement  to  search  for  de- 
tailed programs.  It  is  true  that  the  second 
bears  the  motto  from  Shelley : 

Rarely,  rarely,  comest  them, 
Spirit  of  Delight. 

But  it  will  be  observed,  first,  that  these  lines 
contain  no  pictorial  images  which  would  pre- 
vent their  application  to  the  most  purely 
emotional  music  —  a  symphony  of  Beethoven, 
for  example ;  and  second,  that  even  their 
emotional  bearing  is  somewhat  ambiguous,  as 
we  are  left  in  doubt  whether  it  is  the  Spirit 
of  Delight  itself,,  or  the  rareness  of  its  visita- 
tions, that  we  are  asked  to  consider.  Mr. 
Ernest  Newman  thinks  the  former,  and  finds 
in  the  symphony  the  "jocundity  and  sweet- 
ness" which  characterize  English  music  from 
the  earliest  times.  We  read  in  the  Musical 
Times,1  however,  that  there  is  "some  disagree- 
ment .  .  .  with  the  composer's  own  opinion 

1911. 

121 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

that  it  is  on  a  totally'  different  psychological 
plane  from  that  of  the  first  symphony,  and 
represents  a  more  serene  mood,"  although  the 
writer  adds  that  "it  is  unquestionable  that  the 
themes,  even  in  the  slow  movement,  speak  of 
a  lighter  heart  and  more  tranquil  emotions." 
If  there  is  thus  room  for  doubt  even  as  to  the 
emotional  content  of  the  work,  no  attempt  to 
read  into  it  a  "story"  is  likely  to  be  successful. 
Even  Mr.  Newman,  programist  a  entrance, 
is  forced  in  this  case  to  the  admission  that 
"though  practically  every  musical  work  of 
any  emotional  value  must  start  from  this  basis 
[of  the  composer's  life-experience],1  the  con- 
nection of  it  with  the  external  world  or  with  the 
symbols  of  the  literary  and  plastic  arts  may 
range  through  many  degrees  of  vagueness  or 
precision,  according  to  the  psychological  build 
of  the  composer." 

Coming  now  at  last  to  Elgar's  masterpiece, 

1  This  premise,  which  Mr.  Newman  expands  as  if  it  bore  di- 
rectly on  the  problem  of  program  music,  though  true  to  the  verge 
of  truism,  hardly  helps  us  to  solve  that  problem.  The  question, 
it  may  be  said  once  again,  concerns  not  the  composer's  stimulus, 
but  his  method;  whether,  that  is,  he  works  through  the  sugges- 
tion of  external  objects  or  of  inner  emotional  states. 

122 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


the  Symphony  l  in  A-flat,  No.  i,  opus  55,  first 
performed  under  Dr.  Hans  Richter  at  Man- 
chester and  at  London  in  December,  1908,  we 
find  Elgar's  method  at  its  purest  —  the  pre- 
occupation with  spiritual  states  and  experiences 
is  complete.  It  is  true  that  this  may  be  the 
symphony  upon  which  he  was  reported  nine 
years  earlier  to  be  at  work,  and  which  was  to 
bear  the  title  "Gordon."  If  this  is  the  case  it 
shows  only  that  he  was  moved  to  musical 
expression  by  the  heroism  of  the  great  English- 
man, as  Beethoven  was  by  that  of  Napoleon 
before  it  transpired  that  he  was  a  tyrant.  The 
A-flat  Symphony  is  not  for  that  reason  any 
more  program  music  than  Beethoven's 
"Eroica."  The  two  are  indeed  similar  in 
being  throughout  profound  searchings  of  the 
human  spirit,  highly  dramatic  in  the  vivid- 
ness of  their  introspection,  but  never  realistic. 
They  penetrate  to  a  level  far  deeper  than  that 
of  action ;  they  deal  with  the  emotional  springs 
of  action ;  we  may  even  say  that  each  suggests 
a  philosophy,  since  the  philosophies,  too,  are 

1  Arrangement  for  piano  by  S.  Karg-Elert.     Novello,  Ewer, 
and  Company. 

123 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

born  of  those  deep  inarticulate  emotional  atti- 
tudes toward  life  which  only  music  can  voice 
in  their  purity. 

This  fundamental  attitude  is  in  the  A-flat 
Symphony  far  more  mature  and  chastened  than 
that  of  the  ebulliently  youthful  "Eroica."  If 
we  wished  to  find  its  analogue  in  Beethoven 
(and  it  is  a  high  compliment  to  Elgar  to  say 
that  there  are  few  other  places  we  could  find  it) 
we  should  have  to  go  rather  to  the  Ninth 
Symphony  and  to  the  later  sonatas  and  quartets. 
It  is  in  essence  the  attitude  of  religious  resigna- 
tion, and  has  as  its  constituents  the  primary 
opposition  between  the  ideal  and  reality,  the 
disappointment,  softening,  and  impersonalizing 
of  the  soul  by  experience,  the  reciprocal  activity 
of  the  soul  winning  its  values  out  of  experience, 
and  the  final  reconciliation  between  them.  Of 
course  it  is  not  meant  that  these  ideas  are  in- 
tellectually formulated  in  the  music.  It  is 
simply  that  the  music  expresses  the  emotional 
states  that  accompany  such  universal  human 
experiences,  and  thus  suggests  and  at  the  same 
time  by  its  beauty  transfigures  them. 

The  noble  melody  in  A-flat  major  with  which 
124 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


the  symphony  starts,  recurring  in  the  finale, 
and  indeed  the  nucleus  of  the  whole  work, 
suggests  aspiration,  resolute  will,  the  quest  of 
the  Ideal.  Everything  about  it,  —  its  steady 
movement,  its  simple,  strong  harmonic  basis, 
its  finely  flexible  rhythm,  notably  free  from  the 
short  breath  of  the  composer's  less  exalted 
moments,  even  its  rich  and  yet  quiet  tonality 
of  A-flat  major,  raises  it  into  a  rarefied  atmos- 
phere of  its  own,  above  the  turmoil  of  every- 
day life.  With  the  theme  in  D  minor  marked 
Allegro  appassionato,  on  the  contrary,  we  are 
brought  rudely  down  to  earth,  with  all  its 
confusion,  its  chaos,  its  meaningless  accidents 
(note  the  constant  feverish  motion  of  the  bass, 
the  phantasmagoric  nightmare  harmonies  at 
index  letter  7,  the  increasing  restlessness  of 
the  whole  passage).  Presently  more  poignant 
or  tender  phrases  (10  and  n)  suggest  the 
longing  of  the  spirit  for  the  sweet  reasonable- 
ness of  the  lost  ideal  world,  and  at  12,  in  the 
"second  theme"  in  F  major,  we  do  get  for  a 
moment  a  breathing  interval  of  peace.  The 
beautiful,  tender  phrase,  as  of  divine  pity,  be- 
ginning in  the  fourth  measure  of  n  and  usher- 

125 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

ing  in  this  theme,  should  be  especially  noticed 
for  its  deep  expressiveness  and  its  complete 
originality.  This  "phrase  of  pity,"  as  we  shall 
see,  is  destined  to  play  an  important  part  in 
the  structure  of  the  movement.  Soon  earlier 
fragments  return,  reintroducing  the  restless 
mood,  the  intensity  of  the  feeling  steadily  grows, 
and  at  17  we  have  a  magnificent  climax  in 
which  the  "phrase  of  pity,"  much  slower  and 
more  emphatic  than  before,  suggests  the  first 
crisis  of  the  struggle. 

With  the  return  of  the  theme  of  the  ideal, 
now  in  C  major  (18)  and  in  tentative  accents, 
begins  the  long  and  complex  development  of 
the  themes.  We  need  not  go  into  detail  here, 
further  than  to  remark  that  the  strange,  devious 
new  theme  at  24  seems  almost  to  have  some 
concrete  "meaning,"  undisclosed  by  the  com- 
poser, and  introduces  the  most  baffling  element 
we  find  anywhere  in  the  symphony.  The 
development  proceeds  much  upon  it.  At  32 
begins  the  recapitulation  of  themes  of  the  ortho- 
dox sonata-form,  treated  freely  and  with  many 
interesting  modifications.  The  climax  recurs  at 

44,  now  impressively  amplified.     Even  finer  is 

126 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


the  gradual  but  irresistible  return  of  the  funda- 
mental theme,  the  "Ideal,"  and  its  triumphant 
statement  through  49,  50,  and  51.  The  sinister, 
groping  theme  returns,  however,  seeming  to 
darken  the  atmosphere  as  when  clouds  come 
over  the  sun.  The  "Ideal"  theme  is  heard 
in  faltering,  uncertain  accents,  and  reaches, 
just  before  55,  a  timid  cadence  on  the  tone  C. 
Now  comes  one  of  the  most  exquisite  things, 
not  only  in  this  symphony,  but  in  modern 
music.  While  the  clarinet  holds  this  C,  reached 
in  the  original  key  of  A-flat  major,  the  muted 
strings,  high  and  tenuous,  in  the  remote  key  of 
A  minor,  like  voices  from  another  world,  gently 
breathe  the  "phrase  of  pity."  It  is  magical. 
With  fine  dignity  of  pace  they  reach  the  tone 
C,  whereupon  we  are  again  quietly  but  con- 
clusively brought  back  to  A-flat,  and  with  a 
single  plucked  bass  note  the  chord  of  the  clari- 
nets sinks  to  silence  (Figure  XVII,  page  128). 

The  two  middle  movements  of  the  symphony, 
Allegro  molto  (the  scherzo)  and  Adagio,  are 
played  without  intervening  pause  and  con- 
ceived together.  From  the  point  of  view  both 
of  form  and  of  content  their  treatment  is 

127 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


FIGURE  XVII. 
End  of  first  movement,  First  Symphony. 


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of  exceeding  interest.  Structurally  they  are 
an  inset  between  the  first  movement  and  the 
finale,  contrasting  sharply  with  them  in  key 
as  well  as  in  melodic  material,  embodying  as 
they  do  the  "sharp"  keys  (F-sharp  minor  and 
D  major)  in  opposition  to  the  A-flat  major  and 
D  minor  of  the  others.  After  this  inset  has 
been  completed,  the  earlier  themes  and  keys 
return  in  the  finale  and  round  out  the  cycle 
projected  by  the  first  movement.  Thus  the 
symphony  as  a  whole  consists  of  two  interlock- 
ing systems  —  a  scheme  of  structure  which 

128 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


gives  it  both  variety  and  unity  in  the  highest 
degree. 

The  scherzo  begins  with  a  racing,  eagerly 
hurrying  theme,  staccato,  in  the  violins,  in  the 
fastest  possible  tempo.  Together  with  a  more 
vigorous,  barbarically  insistent  tune  to  which 
it  presently  (59)  gives  place,  it  seems  a  musical 
expression  of  the  forward-looking,  all-conquer- 
ing spirit  of  youth.  These  themes  are  separately 
elaborated,  are  displaced  for  a  while  by  a 
quieter  Trio,  and  finally  return  with  renewed 
vigor,  and  at  last  in  combination  (75).  And 
now,  as  coda,  comes  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able passages  of  the  Symphony.  The  racing 
theme  returns  (82),  but  now  pianissimo,  mys- 
terious, shorn  of  its  pristine  exuberance.  It 
hesitates,  halts,  seems  to  lose  faith  in  itself. 
It  reappears  in  the  more  sombre  key  of  F 
minor,  instead  of  F-sharp  minor,  and  with 
abated  pace  (84).  A  little  later  it  sobers  to  a 
still  quieter  movement,  in  eighth  notes  (86), 
then  (87)  to  quarter  notes,  and  at  last  (90)  the 
clarinets  give  it  out  in  a  movement  eight  times 
slower  than  the  original  headlong  dash.  In- 
deed, the  rhythm  seems  about  to  fail  entirely 
K  129 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

when,  with  a  change  of  key  to  D  major,  and  of 
time  to  Adagio,  we  hear  the  identical  notes  of 
the  original  theme,  sung  now  with  broad  de- 
liberation by  the  violins,  completely  trans- 
figured in  meaning. 

Thus  begins  the  slow  movement  with  the 
coming  of  maturity,  the  taming  of  the  blood, 
the  sadness  of  self-acquaintance  no  longer  to 
be  postponed.  The  excitement  of  unlimited 
possibilities  gives  place  to  the  sober  recogni- 
tion of  limitations.  Poignant  grief  there  is 
here,  unanswered  questioning,  moments  of 
passionate  despair.  But  with  the  beautiful 
and  thoroughly  Elgarian  theme  at  96  begins 
to  creep  in  the  spirit  of  resignation  to  the  in- 
evitable, and  of  divine  pity  for  human  failure, 
born  of  this  bitter  self-discovery.  From  this 
point  on  is  heard  unmistakably  the  deeper  note 
of  religious  consolation,  reaching  full  expression 
at  last  in  the  melody  marked  Molto  espressivo 
e  sostenuto,  one  of  the  noblest,  profoundest,  and 
most  spiritual  that  Elgar  has  conceived,  with 
which  the  movement  ends. 

The  finale  opens  with  a  slow  introduction, 
intended  partly  to  direct  our  attention  back 

130 


SIR     EDWARD     ELGAR 


to  the  first  movement  and  partly  to  forecast 
the  strains  destined  to  complete  the  cycle  which 
it  began.  We  hear  the  mysterious  groping 
theme  first  heard  in  its  development  and  frag- 
ments of  the  "Ideal."  Especial  emphasis  is 
laid,  however,  on  a  marchlike  tune,  given  out 
by  bassoons  and  low  strings  at  the  sixth  meas- 
ure, and  on  an  aspiring  phrase  for  clarinet 
(measures  10-11)  peculiar  to  the  present  move- 
ment. The  prevailing  mood  here,  both  in  the 
main  theme  with  its  emphatic  interlocking 
rhythms  (the  opening  Allegro)  and  in  the  second 
theme  at  114,  with  its  buoyant  triplets  recalling 
the  finale  of  Brahms's  third  symphony,  is 
energetic  will.  This  seems  to  merge  in  jubilant 
achievement  in  the  march-like  theme  of  the 
introduction  at  its  reentrance  at  118.  For  a 
moment,  to  be  sure,  doubt  as  to  this  triumph 
seems  to  be  suggested  by  a  rather  halting 
version  of  the  "Ideal"  (129)  and  by  a  ponder- 
ing version  of  the  march  theme  (130).  But 
with  the  return  of  the  main  themes  of  the  move- 
ment at  its  recapitulation,  beginning  at  134 
and  now  inflected  towards  A-flat,  the  radical 
tonality  of  the  whole  symphony,  the  mood  of 

131 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

vigorous  volition  revives,  and  from  now  on 
to  the  splendid  reassertion,  by  the  full  orches- 
tra, in  its  richest  sonorities,  of  the  theme  of 
the  "Ideal,"  all  is  one  long  climax. 

It  is  hard  to  see  how  any  candid  student  can 
deny  the  greatness  of  this  symphony.  If  only 
for  the  stoutness  of  its  structure,  the  grasp 
with  which  the  fundamental  principles  of 
musical  form  are  seized,  however  the  details 
have  to  be  modified  to  suit  the  occasion,  and 
for  the  richness  and  variety  of  its  treatment 
of  orchestral  coloring,  it  would  hold  a  con- 
spicuous place  among  modern  orchestral  works. 
But  of  course  these  things  are  only  means ; 
the  end  of  music  is  expression.  It  is,  then, 
to  the  fact  that  the  symphony  gives  eloquent 
voice  to  some  of  the  deepest,  most  sacred,  and 
most  elusive  of  human  feelings  that  we  must 
attribute  its  real  importance.  That  it  does 
this  at  a  time  when  most  musicians  are  looking 
outward  rather  than  inward,  and  incline  to 
value  sensuous  beauty  above  thought,  and 
vividness  above  profundity,  gives  us  all  the 
more  reason  for  receiving  it  with  gratitude, 
and  finding  in  it  a  good  omen  for  the  future. 

132 


IV 
CLAUDE  DEBUSSY 


IV 
CLAUDE  DEBUSSY 


O  peculiarity  of  contemporary 
musical  taste  is  more  striking 
than  the  extraordinary  popu- 
larity which  the  elusive  songs 
and  piano  pieces  of  Debussy 
have  enjoyed  during  the  last  decade  or  two. 
They  have  been  heard,  with  a  delight  agree- 
ably mixed  with  bewilderment,  in  the  draw- 
ing-rooms of  the  whole  world,  just  as  Grieg's 
were  at  a  slightly  earlier  period  ;  and,  like  Grieg, 
their  author  has  become  the  idol  of  the  amateur. 
There  is  no  doubt  of  it,  Debussy  has  been  the 
prime  musical  fad  of  the  twentieth  century. 
The  fact  is  interesting  —  worth  examination. 
The  reasons  of  it  throw  a  strong  light  not  only 
on  Debussy  himself,  but  —  which  is  more  im- 
portant —  on  our  whole  contemporary  musical 

life. 

Claude  Achille  Debussy,  born  in  1862  at  St. 

Germain-en-Laye,    near    Paris,    and    educated 

135 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

at  the  Conservatoire,  first  gained  wide  fame 
by  his  opera,  "Pelleas  et  Melisande,"  produced 
at  the  Opera  Comique  in  1902.  By  its  imag- 
inative re-creation  in  music  of  Maeterlinck's 
fatalism  and  atmosphere  of  mystery,  by  its 
dramatic  directness,  its  justice  of  declamation, 
its  moderation  and  avoidance  of  Wagnerian 
exaggeration,  perhaps  above  all  by  the  original- 
ity of  its  harmonic  style  and  its  delicately 
tinted  orchestration,  it  undoubtedly  marked 
an  epoch  in  French  music.  Debussy  had  at 
this  time  already  fixed  the  fundamental  quali- 
ties of  his  style  in  sucht  compositions  as  the 
quartet  for  strings  (1893),  more  virile  than  his 
later  works,  and  the  well-known  orchestral  pre- 
lude after  a  prose  poem  by  Mallarme,  arch- 
priest  of  the  symbolistic  movement,  "L'Apres- 
midi  d'un  faune."  In  later  orchestral  pieces, 
the  Nocturnes  for  orchestra  (1899),  the  sym- 
phonic sketches  "La  Mer"  (1905),  the  highly 
colored  "Iberia"  (1907),  as  well  as  in  choral 
works  like  the  "Martyre  de  Saint  Sebastien" 
(1911),  we  see  him  refining  the  same  manner, 
seeking  always,  like  his  compatriot  the  poet 
Verlaine,  the  subtleties,  the  delicacies,  the 

136 


CLAUDE    DEBUSSY 


shades  and  half-shades,  la  nuance,  la  nuance 
toujours.  It  is,  however,  through  his  smaller 
works  —  his  songs  and  especially  his  piano 
pieces  —  that  Debussy  is  best  known  to  the 
mass  of  his  admirers ;  and  as  the  same  quali- 
ties reveal  themselves  here  too,  it  is  in  these 
that  we  shall  try  to  understand  them.  In  the 
"Estampes"  (1903),  the  "Masques"  (1904), 
the  "Images"  (1905  and  1908),  the  "Preludes" 
(1910  and  1913),  and  many  lesser  pieces  he  has 
created  what  is  virtually  a  department  of  his 
own  in  the  literature  of  the  piano.  Here  is  the 
essential  Debussy. 

The  adaptation  between  the  art  and  the 
audience  here,  as  is  always  the  case  where 
there  is  extreme  popularity,  is  so  perfect  that 
we  can  equally  well  begin  our  study  from  either 
end.  Let  us  start  with  the  audience.  Not 
that  Debussy  consciously  sought  to  "give  the 
public  what  it  wants " ;  no  artist  worthy  the 
name  does  that.  What  is  meant  is  simply 
that  his  qualities  were  spontaneously  such  as 
exactly  to  satisfy  his  audience's  requirements ; 
or,  in  biological  terms,  the  organism  was  fortu- 
nate enough  to  be  exactly  suited  to  its  en- 

137 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

vironment,  peculiarly  "fit  to  survive."  As 
investigating  biologists  we  can  therefore  either 
approach  the  environment  through  the  organ- 
ism or  the  organism  through  the  environment  — 
and  we  choose  to  do  the  latter. 

The  environment  of  the  modern  composer 
is  a  public  numerically  larger  than  ever  before, 
and  qualitatively  affected  by  this  increased 
size  according  to  the  law  of  averages  —  de- 
graded, that  is,  from  the  qualities  of  the  mi- 
nority toward  those  of  the  majority.  In  less 
abstract  terms,  the  modern  audience  contains 
to  every  one  intelligent  listener  ten  or  a  hun- 
dred who  are  ignorant,  untrained,  or  inatten- 
tive. The  results  of  this  disproportion  are 
familiar  to  us  on  all  sides ;  they  range  from 
such  a  general  matter  as  the  very  conception 
of  art,  and  especially  of  music,  as  a  mere 
amusement  or  diversion  rather  than  a  spiritual 
experience,  down  to  such  details  as  the  pref- 
erence, natural  to  the  untrained,  of  sensuous 
pleasure  (in  rich  tone-combinations,  for  ex- 
ample) to  emotion  and  thought  (as  embodied 
musically  in  melody),  and  of  a  vague  day- 
dreaming mood  when  listening  to  music  to  the 

138 


CLAUDE     DEBUSSY 


imaginative  and  sympathetic  attention  that 
music  requires  of  him  who  would  really  grasp 
its  objective  beauty. 

Now  it  is  in  his  appeal  to  this  modern  pref- 
erence of  sensation  to  thought  and  emotion, 
and  of  subjective  day-dreaming  to  the  im- 
personal perception  of  beauty,  that  Debussy 
has  been  especially  happy.  He  is  not,  of 
course,  alone  in  making  these  appeals.  The 
preoccupation  with  the  sensuous  is  observable 
in  most  contemporary  music,  an  especially 
striking  instance  being  Strauss's  orchestration. 
As  for  the  ministering  to  "mood"  rather  than 
to  the  sense  of  beauty,  the  whole  tendency 
toward  "program,"  so  characteristic  of  our 
time,  might  be  accounted  for  by  a  cynic  as  a 
sacrifice  to  the  majority  of  something  they  do 
not  understand  (music)  to  something  they  do 
(an  opportunity  for  day-dreaming).  But  De- 
bussy is  peculiarly  thoroughgoing  in  his  ap- 
plication of  these  familiar  modern  methods. 
All  the  elements  of  his  art  are  focused  upon 
this  kind  of  satisfaction. 

First  he  gives  us  a  title  admirably  fitted  (for 
he  has  keen  literary  instinct)  to  liberate  our 

139 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

reverizing  impulse  —  "Gardens  in  the  Rain," 
"Reflections  in  the  Water,"  "Sounds  and 
Perfumes  Turn  in  the  Evening  Air,"  "Gold- 
Fish,"  "Veils."  Then  he  proceeds  to  estab- 
lish the  mood  of  idle  reverie  thus  suggested  by 
means  of  a  tonal  web  which  at  no  point  dis- 
tracts our  attention  by  any  definite  features 
of  its  own,  melodic,  rhythmic,  harmonic,  or 
structural.  All  is  vague,  floating,  kaleidoscopic. 
Sustained  melody  is  especially  avoided,  for 
nothing  arrests  attention  or  dominates  mood 
like  melody ;  we  have  therefore  only  bits  and 
snippets  of  tune,  forming  and  disappearing  like 
cloud  forms  or  the  eddies  in  smoke-wreaths. 
The  rhythms  are  equally  casual  and  indeter- 
minate, often  of  exquisite  grace,  but  obeying 
no  law.  The  harmonies  are  surprisingly  vari- 
ous —  rich,  clear,  or  clangorous,  as  the  case 
may  be;  but  always  elusive,  avoiding  the 
definition  that  would  impose  thought  rather 
than  encourage  fancy.  The  effect  of  vague- 
ness is  here  enhanced  by  the  much-talked-of 
whole-tone  scale.  As  there  is  little  musical 
thought  or  emotion  (melody),  there  is  still 
less  of  that  natural  growth  and  combination  of 

140 


CLAUDE     DEBUSSY 


thought  with  thought  which  we  call  thematic 
development  and  polyphony.  These  are  alien 
to  the  type  of  art,  and  are  wisely  avoided. 

It  is  curious  to  compare  Debussy's  treatment 
of  his  programs  with  that  of  Strauss.  The 
imagination  of  the  German,  however  he  may 
call  literary  or  pictorial  associations  to  his 
aid,  is  primarily  musical.  A  literary  idea  may 
suggest  to  him  a  theme,  as  Till  Eulenspiegel's 
capricious  mischief  strikes  from  him  that  sur- 
prising Till  motive,  with  its  queer  jumps  and 
galvanic  rhythms.  But  once  such  a  theme 
exists  it  begins  to  act,  musically,  of  itself,  and 
develops  such  a  network  of  musically  inter- 
esting relationships  that  the  listener,  fas- 
cinated, clean  forgets  the  program  in  his 
purely  aesthetic  delight.  Strauss,  probably, 
forgets  it  too.  He  does  for  us,  in  spite  of  his 
programs,  exactly  the  kind  of  thing  that 
Mozart,  Beethoven,  and  Schumann  do;  he 
creates  intrinsically  significant  and  expressive 
musical  forms  (melodies)  capable  of  absorbing 
our  attention  and  transfiguring  all  they  touch 
—  even  a  rogue  like  Till  Eulenspiegel  —  with 
their  aesthetic  magic.  The  Frenchman's  im- 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

agination,  on  the  contrary,  is  primarily  liter- 
ary, dramatic,  pictorial.  He  is  led  by  it, 
not  to  the  creation  of  musically  significant 
forms,  but  to  a  keenly  sympathetic  realization 
of  the  mood  suggested  by  the  program, 
and  to  a  most  subtle  musical  evocation  of  it 
by  appropriate  means,  chiefly  sensuous.  He  is 
thus,  literally,  a  painter  of  "mood  pictures." 
And  as  most  people  do  not  care  to  make  the 
effort  to  follow  and  relive  a  musical  experience, 
but  prefer  to  be  lulled  by  agreeable  sounds  into 
a  trance  in  which  their  fancy  may  weave  ad- 
ventures and  project  pictures  for  itself,  his 
audience  is  delighted.  From  this  point  of 
view  symbolism  is  the  type  of  art  which  most 
appeals  to  the  inartistic,  and  Debussy  is  the 
musician  most  beloved  by  the  unmusical. 

We  should  not  be  talking  about  Debussy, 
however,  if  these  negatives  were  all  there  were 
to  say  about  him.  Thousands  of  composers 
before  him  have  succeeded  in  avoiding  definite 
melody,  rhythm,  and  harmony,  coherent  the- 
matic development,  and  thoughtful  polyphony, 
and  have  won  only  oblivion.  His  not  dis- 
tracting our  attention  by  these  musical  ele- 

142 


CLAUDE     DEBUSSY 


ments  is  a  part  of  his  scheme  of  art,  but  the 
more  important  part  of  it  is  the  sensuous 
charm  by  which  he  wins  our  interest  and  in- 
hibits our  mental  and  emotional  activity  — 
the  sheer  tonal  magic  of  his  sonorities.  He  is 
a  miracle  of  deftness  in  the  purveying  of  musi- 
cal sweets.  This  is  admitted  even  by  his  de- 
tractors, who  cannot  deny  the  seductiveness 
with  which  his  music  woos  the  physical  ear, 
however  little  it  appeals  to  their  heads  or  their 
hearts.  As  for  his  admirers,  they  become 
rhapsodic  over  these  "effects"  and  "sonori- 
ties," which  they  praise  with  a  half-religious 
awe  that  used  to  be  reserved  for  ideas.  Listen, 
for  instance,  to  M.  Chenneviere,1  an  accredited 
expositor:  "Voluptuous,  corporeal,  naturalis- 
tic —  such  is  the  Debussyan  art.  The  pas- 
sions, the  sentiments,  leave  him  often  indif- 
ferent." And  again :  "The  modern  ear  has 
become  very  fine,  very  delicate.  It  delights 
in  sonorities.  A  beautiful  chord  is  a  rare  in- 
toxication, and  sometimes  an  author  repeats 
it  lingeringly,  the  better  to  savor  it."  If  we 

*"  Claude  Debussy  et  son  ceuvre,"  by  Daniel  Chenneviere, 
Paris,  1913. 

H3 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

adopt,  at  least  tentatively,  this  frankly  sensu- 
ous and  hedonistic  view  of  music,  we  shall  find 
much  to  admire  in  Debussy. 

In  the  long  evolution  from  the  simple  to  the 
complex  which  music  shares  with  everything 
else  we  know  we  may  observe  two  different 
methods  of  tone-combination  which,  working 
together,  have  given  us  the  elaborate  texture 
of  the  modern  art.  That  especially  suited  to 
melodic  instruments,  like  those  used  in  the 
orchestra  or  the  chorus,  puts  melodies  together 
as  an  engraver  puts  together  lines,  each  re- 
maining distinct,  standing  off  clearly  from 
the  others,  representing  a  different  musical 
thought,  and  yet  all  agreeing,  or,  as  we  say, 
harmonizing.  This  method,  called  polyphony, 
requiring  great  skill  in  the  composer  and  close 
attention  from  the  audience,  is  illustrated  by 
such  masterpieces  as  a  fugue  of  Bach,  a  string 
quartet  of  Beethoven,  or  the  famous  passage 
at  the  end  of  Wagner's  Meistersinger  Over- 
ture, where  four  themes  are  driven  abreast 
as  in  some  proud  chariot.  It  results  in  a 
texture  essentially  composite,  involving  rela- 
tions between  elements  held  in  mind  together 

144 


CLAUDE    DEBUSSY 


—  that  is  to  say,  it  is  thoughtful,  and  requires 
answering  thought  for  its  appreciation. 

But  as  soon  as  the  piano,  ill  suited  to  melody 
because  of  its  unsustained  tone,  began  to  reach 
any  degree  of  development  —  that  is  to  say, 
about  the  time  of  Schumann  (1810-1856)  and 
Chopin  (1809-1849)  —  it  became  evident  that 
this  instrument  compensated  for  its  short- 
comings in  rendering  polyphony  by  a  special 
aptitude  for  another  kind  of  tone-combination, 
which  we  may  call  the  homophonic  or  chordal. 
A  great  many  tones  could  be  played  at  once, 
held  either  by  the  fingers  or  by  the  damper- 
pedal,  and  made  to  shimmer  with  those  thou- 
sand hues  of  the  tonal  rainbow  we  call  "over- 
tones." There  was  apparently  no  limit  to  the 
complexity  of  the  agglomerations  of  tone  that 
the  ear  could  thus  be  trained  not  only  to 
accept  but  to  delight  in  —  the  rule  being,  as 
Chopin  in  his  "fluid  and  vaporous  sonorities" 
showed,  that  the  greater  in  number  and  the 
more  dissonant  or  clashing  in  character  were 
these  color  tones,  the  more  agreeably  rich  would 
be  the  resulting  impression  on  the  ear. 
But  however  complex  these  tone  associations 

l  I4S 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

or  chords,  it  is  important  to  note  that  this 
resultant  psychological  impression  was  simple 
and  unified  —  that  is,  the  ear  perceived  but 
one  thing,  and  not  several  as  in  the  polyphonic 
style.  There  was  therefore  no  comparison  of 
different  elements,  no  thought  or  emotion ; 
there  was  simply  sensation,  physically  delight- 
ful, mentally  and  emotionally  meaningless. 

Debussy  has  probably  brought  more  tal- 
ent and  originality  to  the  elaboration  of  this 
method  of  writing  for  the  piano  than  any  other 
composer  since  Chopin  and  Schumann.  Open 
his  pages  anywhere  and  you  will  find  these 
wide-spaced  chords,  these  gossamer  arpeggios 
and  scales  embroidering  them,  these  nicely 
calculated  grace-notes  adding  just  the  dis- 
sonance needed  to  season  the  dish.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  opening  measures  of  "La 
Cathedrale  engloutie"  (Figure  XVIII),  char- 
acteristically marked  "Profoundly  calm  (in  a 
softly  sonorous  mist)." 

The  intention  to  produce  a  misty,  not  to 
say  foggy,  homogeneity  of  tone  here  is  so 
obvious  that  it  seems  strange  that  just  such 
passages  have  aroused  the  ire  of  pedants  who 

146 


CLAUDE    DEBUSSY 


FIGURE  XVIII. 

From  "La  Cathedrale  engloutie"  (Preludes,  Book  I). 
Profondement  calme  (Dans  une  brume  dou  cement  sonore). 


&*-> 


(The  incompleted  ties  indicate  that  the  chord  is  to  be  kept 
sounding  by  the  pedal.) 

have  tried  to  apply  to  them  the  rules  of  the 
other  way  of  writing  —  the  polyphonic.  When 
we  wish  diverse  melodies  to  stand  out  clearly 
one  from  another,  we  must  avoid  "parallel 
fifths  'and  octaves/'  which  make  them  coalesce. 
Accordingly  Debussy  has  been  blamed,  by 
those  who  prefer  rules  to  reason,  for  using 
precisely  the  device  which  will  give  him  the 
physical  richness  with  mental  vacuity  which 
he  is  seeking. 

When  this  admirable  colorist  wishes  a 
brighter  or  more  incisive  sonority  than  one  of 
this  kind,  he  resorts  to  dissonances,  and  es- 
pecially to  the  interval  of  the  "second"  — 

147 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

notes  adjacent  in  the  scale.  The  opening 
measures  of  "Et  la  lune  descend  sur  le  temple 
qui  fut"  (Figure  XIX)  afford  an  example  of 

FIGURE  XIX. 

"  Et  la  lune  descend  sur  la  temple  qui  fut." 


this  in  a  quiet  tone ;  more  clangorous  qualities 
of  it  will  be  found  in  "Masques,"  "L'ile 
joyeuse,"  and  "Jardins  sous  la  pluie."  The 
first  example  illustrates  what  was  said  of  the 
simplicity  for  the  mind,  whatever  the  com- 
plexity for  the  ear,  of  this  kind  of  tone-com- 
bination. The  chords  contain  a  good  many 
notes  each ;  but  there  emerges  only  one  melody, 
and  that  rather  obvious. 

The  same  search  for  rich  or  brilliant  color 
that  led  to  this  use  of  "seconds,"  carried  a 
little  further,  brought  the  composer  to  that 
whole-tone  scale  (or  scale  entirely  made  up 

148 


CLAUDE     DEBUSSY 


of  "seconds,"  as  C,  D,  E,  F-sharp,  G-sharp, 
A-sharp,  C)  which  he  has  used  with  such 
irresistible  appeal.  He  has,  to  be  sure,  no 
patent  right  in  it.  Moussorgsky,  Borodine, 
and  others  had  used  it  before  him ;  his  French 
contemporaries  have  used  it  with  skill ;  and 
now  that  it  is  common  property  some  have 
even  elicited  from  it  strains  of  plangent  force 
and  manly  energy  foreign  to  Debussy's  tem- 
perament. The  fact  remains  that  he  has 
made  it  peculiarly  his  own  by  the  subtlety, 
variety,  and  charm  of  his  employment  of 
it,  as  may  be  seen,  for  example,  throughout 
"Voiles,"  in  the  first  book  of  Preludes,  and 
in  scattered  measures  in  almost  any  of  his 
pieces.  The  whole-tone  scale  is  indeed  pre- 
ordained by  nature  as  a  goal  to  which  such  an 
art  as  Debussy's  inevitably  tends ;  its  clash- 
ing tones  feed  the  greedy  ear  with  the  richest 
diet  the  gamut  can  provide ;  at  the  same  time 
the  equivocal  character  of  the  chords,  or  rather 
the  single  chord  (the  so-called  "augmented 
triad")  that  can  harmonize  it,  and  the  self- 
contradictoriness  of  its  tones  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  older  scale,  do  away  with  the 

149 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

sense  of  key  and  even  of  momentary  repose, 
and  leave  us  groping  in  a  tonal  night  in  which, 
since  there  is  nothing  to  be  observed,  we  can 
give  ourselves  up  undisturbed  to  dreaming. 

Debussy  is  thus  a  true  child  of  his  time  in 
his  quest  of  the  sensuous,  and  a  true  child  of 
his  country  in  the  subtlety  with  which  he  pur- 
sues it.  His  Gallic  taste  saves  him  from  the 
coarseness  of  so  much  of  the  contemporary 
Teutonic  art;  and  while  his  aim  is  no  more 
spiritual  than  that  of  the  Germans,  he  prefers 
innuendo,  implication,  and  understatement  to 
the  gross  exaggeration  of  Strauss,  the  vehe- 
mence in  platitude  of  Mahler,  and  the  plod- 
ding literalness  of  Reger.  Thus  opposing, 
as  he  has  so  effectively  done,  the  ideal  of 
mere  force,  reducing  in  "Pelleas"  the  mam- 
moth modern  orchestra  to  a  handful  of  men 
skillfully  exploited,  substituting  the  most  elu- 
sive sonorities  of  the  piano  for  the  crashing 
magnificence  of  the  Liszt  school,  everywhere 
insisting  on  subtle  quality  rather  than  over- 
whelming quantity,  he  has  exercised  one  of 
the  most  beneficial  of  influences  against  vul- 
garity of  the  bumptious  type.  But  sybaritism, 

150 


CLAUDE     DEBUSSY 


too,  has  its  own  vulgarity ;  the  question  of 
aim  is  fundamental  in  art;  and  in  judging  the 
distinction  of  Debussy's  aims  we  cannot  evade 
the  question  whether  physical  pleasure,  how- 
ever refined,  is  the  highest  good  an  artist  can 
seek.  His  charm,  beyond  doubt,  is  great 
enough  to  justify  his  popularity.  Yet  it  would 
be  regrettable  if  the  student  of  modern  French 
music,  satisfied  with  this  charm,  were  to 
neglect  the  less  popular  but  more  virile,  more 
profound,  and  more  spiritual  music  of  Cesar 
Franck,  Ernest  Chausson,  and  Vincent  d'Indy. 

NOTE  :   Claude  Debussy  died  in  Paris,  March  26,  1918. 


V 
VINCENT  D'INDY 


ij 

,1 


VINCENT  D'!NDY  AS  A  YOUNG  MAN 


VINCENT  D'INDY 


UR  age,  because  of  the  natural 
failure  of  our  inner  powers,  at 
first,  to  keep  pace  with  the  re- 
cent unprecedented  increase  of 
our  external  resources,  will  prob- 
ably be  known  to  the  future  as  one  of  unpar- 
alleled confusion.  With  the  mental  and  moral 
habits  and  the  nervous  systems  inherited  from 
a  more  placid  generation,  we  find  ourselves 
plunged  in  this  maelstrom  produced  by  cheap 
printing,  quick  communication,  and  facile 
transportation.  Prepared  to  digest  only  a  lim- 
ited environment,  we  are  fed  the  whole  world. 
No  wonder  we  are  distracted.  .  .  .  The  situ- 
ation, of  course,  is  full  of  interest  to  the  more 
adventurous  temperaments ;  but  however  stim- 
ulating to  the  man  of  action  it  is  scarcely 
favorable  to  the  artist,  since  art  is  born  only 
of  tranquil  emotion,  firmly  grasped  and  clearly 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

arranged.  Most  contemporary  musicians  are 
thus  bewildered  and  to  some  extent  defeated 
by  the  very  richness  of  the  materials  at  hand ; 
their  art  is  not  equal  to  the  strain  put  upon  it 
by  their  greatly  enlarged  resources ;  and  their 
music  is  in  consequence  unindividual  in  expres- 
sion, flabbily  eclectic  in  style,  and  vague  or 
wandering  in  structure. 

It  may  seem  at  first  thought  paradoxical 
that  these  melancholy  results  of  a  momentary 
insufficiency  of  the  mind  to  its  materials 
should  have  proved  most  fatal  precisely  in  the 
country  that  in  simpler  times  has  done  most 
to  create  music.  Strange  it  is,  indeed,  that 
Germany,  which  in  Beethoven  voiced  the 
spiritual  aspiration,  in  Schumann  the  ro- 
mantic joy,  and  in  Brahms  the  philosophic 
meditation  of  the  whole  world,  should  find 
itself  at  length  reduced  to  the  half-impotent 
strivings  of  a  Mahler,  to  the  learned  lucu- 
brations of  a  Reger,  while  mixed  with  even  the 
gold  of  its  one  genius,  Strauss,  there  should  be 
so  much  dross  of  cheap  sensationalism  and 
irrelevant  melodrama.  Yet  to  consideration 
these  signs  of  a  widespread  decadence  in 

156 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


German  music  will  not  by  any  means  remain 
incomprehensible.  For  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  Teutonic  introspectiveness,  the  supreme 
gift  of  that  temperament,  incomparable  and 
sufficient  endowment  as  it  seemed  in  the 
musicians  of  the  great  period,  hardly  suffices 
those  who  have  to  steer  their  way  in  a  much 
more  complicated  environment,  surrounded  by 
pitfalls,  calling  at  every  step  for  qualities  with 
which  the  typical  German  is  by  no  means 
so  well  supplied  —  intelligence,  discrimination, 
moderation,  and  taste.  It  is  the  lack  of  these 
intellectual  or  spiritual  qualities,  rather  than 
any  falling  off  in  purely  emotional  power,  that 
has  brought  the  great  stream  of  music  that 
flowed  through  Bach,  Beethoven,  Schumann, 
and  Brahms  to  its  end  in  the  stagnant  mo- 
rasses of  contemporary  Kapellmeistermusik, 
or  scattered  it  in  the  showy  but  unsatisfying 
jets  of  sensationalism.  And  as  Russia  still 
remains  a  bit  barbaric,  England  a  little  pro- 
vincial, America  immature,  and  Italy  tainted 
with  operaticism  (an  ugly  word  for  an  ugly 
thing),  it  is  chiefly  in  France,  with  its  racial 
genius  of  lucid  intelligence,  that  we  find  a 

157 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

truly  vital  contemporary  music.  There  we 
owe  it  chiefly  to  the  high  creative  genius  of 
Cesar  Franck,  Belgian  by  birth  and  tempera- 
ment, French  in  education  and  intellectual 
clarity,  and  to  the  loyal  co-labors,  creative, 
critical,  and  educational,  of  his  pupils  and  dis- 
ciples. If  there  is  to-day,  despite  the  confu- 
sions of  the  time,  a  clear  tradition  and  a  hope- 
ful future  for  instrumental  music,  it  is  chiefly 
these  modern  Frenchmen  that  we  have  to 
thank. 

Especially  has  Vincent  d'Indy,  to-day  dom- 
inant in  the  group,  contributed  to  its  work  for 
many  years  the  indefatigable  efforts  of  his 
powerful  and  many-sided  personality,  more 
variously  gifted  than  any  of  the  others,  since 
he  is  not  only  a  composer  of  genius,  but  a 
lucid  writer,  an  able  organizer,  and  a  teacher 
and  conductor  of  singular  magnetism.  He 
came  under  the  influence  of  Franck  at  his 
most  plastic  period  ;  he  was  a  youth  of  twenty- 
two  when,  in  1873,  he  entered  Franck's  organ 
class  at  the  Paris  Conservatoire ;  and  of  the 
circumstances,  characteristic  of  both  teacher 
and  pupil,  under  which  this  most  fruitful 

158 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


relationship  began,  he  has  himself  written  in 
his  "Life  of  Franck." 

"Having  with  great  trouble,"  he  says,  "got 
upon  paper  a  formless  quartet  for  piano  and 
strings,  I  asked  Franck  for  an  appointment. 
When  I  had  played  him  the  first  movement, 
he  remained  a  moment  silent,  and  then,  turn- 
ing toward  me  with  a  sad  air,  he  said  to  me 
words  I  have  never  forgotten,  since  they  had 
a  decisive  action  on  my  life :  'There  are  good 
things  here,  energy,  a  certain  instinct  for 
dialogue  of  the  parts,  .  .  .  the  ideas  are  not 
bad,  .  .  .  but  that  is  not  enough,  it  is  not 
made,  and,  in  short,  you  know  nothing  at  alV 
Returning  home  in  the  night  (the  interview 
had  taken  place  very  late  in  the  evening)  I 
said  to  myself,  in  my  wounded  vanity,  that 
Franck  must  be  a  reactionary,  understand- 
ing nothing  of  youthful,  modern  art.  Never- 
theless, calmer  the  next  morning,  I  took 
up  my  unhappy  quartet  and  recalled  one  by 
one  his  observations,  .  .  .  and  I  was  obliged 
to  admit  that  he  was  right :  I  knew  absolutely 
nothing.  I  went  then,  almost  trembling,  to 
ask  him  to  accept  me  as  a  pupil." 

159 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

At  this  time  Franck,  already  fifty-one  years 
old,  was  little  appreciated  as  a  composer, 
appeared  to  the  world  as  a  hard-worked  or- 
ganist who  taught  ten  hours  a  day  and  wrote 
for  two  hours  before  breakfast  works  seldom 
heard,  and  had  indeed  not  yet  discovered  the 
vein  from  which  he  so  enriched  music  during 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life.  Nevertheless 
d'Indy  at  once  recognized  the  fruitfulness  of 
his  ideas,  devoted  himself  to  a  severe  tech- 
nical discipline  in  accordance  with  them,  and 
assumed  that  role  of  filial  defender  and  ex- 
positor of  them  in  which  he  has  never  wearied 
from  that  day  to  this.  There  is  something 
not  only  rarely  beautiful  in  itself,  but  most 
characteristic  of  the  purity  of  d'Indy's  self-for- 
getful devotion  to  music,  in  the  loyalty  which 
he  has  always  given  to  his  "Pater  seraph- 
icus,"  as  Franck's  artistic  sons  called  him, 
from  the  period  when  as  a  student  he  left  the 
conservatory  which  misprized  his  master,  to 
the  day  when,  himself  a  master,  he  published 
his  "Life  of  Franck."  M.  Remain  Rolland 
gives  us  a  picture  of  it  in  his  description  of  the 
first  performance,  in  March,  1888,  of  Franck's 

160 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


"Theme,  fugue,  and  variation"  for  harmo- 
nium and  piano,  at  a  concert  of  the  Societe 
nationale  de  musique,  when  Franck  played 
the  harmonium,  and  d'Indy  the  piano.  "I 
always  remember,"  says  M.  Rolland,1  "his 
respectful  attitude  toward  the  old  musician, 
his  studious  care  to  follow  his  indications : 
one  would  have  thought  he  was  a  pupil,  at- 
tentive and  docile;  and  this  was  touching 
from  a  young  master,  established  by  so  many 
works  —  the  Chant  de  la  Cloche,  Wallenstein, 
the  Symphonie  sur  un  theme  montagnard  —  and 
perhaps  better  known  and  more  popular  than 
Cesar  Franck  himself.  Since  then  twenty 
years  have  passed ;  I  continue  to  see  him  as  I 
saw  him  that  evening ;  and  whatever  happens 
now  his  image  will  remain  always  for  me 
closely  associated  with  that  of  the  great  master 
dominating,  with  a  paternal  smile,  this  small 
assembly  of  faithful  ones." 

This  "small  assembly  of  faithful  ones,"  the 
pupils  of  Franck,  such  as  Duparc,  Chausson, 
Coquard,  Bordes,  Ropartz,  Benoit,  d'Indy, 
as  well  as  others,  like  Saint-Saens  and  Faure, 

1  Musicians  d'aujourd'hui ;  Remain  Rolland. 
M  161 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

who,  though  not  his  pupils,  have  felt  his  in- 
fluence, have  virtually  created  since  1870, 
largely  under  his  inspiration,  a  new  music 
in  France.  The  story  of  it  may  be  read  in  M. 
Rolland's  book,  in  the  essay  "Le  renouveau." 
At  the  time  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  (in 
which  d'Indy  served  as  a  corporal  of  the  io5th 
regiment),  symphonic  and  chamber  music 
suffered  almost  complete  neglect  in  Paris. 
"Before  1870,"  writes  M.  Saint-Saens,1  "a 
French  composer  who  had  the  folly  to  ven- 
ture into  the  domain  of  instrumental  music, 
had  no  other  way  to  get  his  works  played  than 
to  organize  a  concert  himself,  inviting  his 
friends  and  the  critics.  The  rare  chamber 
music  societies  were  as  much  closed  to  all  new 
comers  as  the  orchestral  concerts ;  their  pro- 
grams contained  only  the  celebrated  names, 
above  discussion,  of  the  great  classic  sym- 
phonists.  At  that  time  one  had  truly  to  be 
bereft  of  all  common  sense  to  write  music. 
It  was  in  order  to  correct  this  state  of  things 
that  a  group  of  musicians  organized  in  Febru- 
ary, 1871,  the  Societe  nationale  de  musique, 

1  Harmonie  et  Melodie.    C.  Saint-Saens. 
162 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


with  the  device  'Ars  gallica,'  and  the  avowed 
end  of  'aiding  the  production  and  familiariza- 
tion of  all  serious  musical  works,  of  French 
composers,  and  of  encouraging,  so  far  as  may 
be  in  its  power,  all  musical  tentatives,  of 
whatever  kind,  which  show  on  the  part  of 
their  author  elevated  and  artistic  aspirations.' ' 
M.  Holland  does  not  hesitate  to  call  the  Societe 
nationale  "the  cradle  and  the  sanctuary  of 
French  art."  "All  that  has  been  great  in 
French  music  from  1870  to  1900,"  he  says, 
"has  come  by  way  of  it.  Without  it  the 
greater  part  of  the  works  which  are  the  honor 
of  our  music  not  only  would  not  have  been 
performed,  but  perhaps  would  not  even  have 
been  written."  And  he  draws  from  the  pro- 
grams records  of  the  performance  of  important 
compositions  by  Franck,  Saint-Saens,  d'Indy, 
Chabrier,  Lalo,  Bruneau,  Chausson,  Debussy, 
Dukas,  Lekeu,  Magnard,  and  Ravel. 

Vincent  d'Indy's  personal  contribution  to 
the  work  of  the  society  began  to  be  consider- 
able from  1 88 1  on,  when  the  influence  of  the 
Franck  school  became  dominant.  In  1886 
his  proposal  to  include  in  the  programs  the 

163 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

works  of  classic  and  foreign  composers  led 
to  the  resignation  of  Saint-Saens  and  Bussine. 
In  1890,  at  the  death  of  Franck,  he  became 
president  of  the  society.  Under  his  influence 
the  representation  of  classical  works  has  par- 
ticularly increased  —  Palestrina,  Vittoria,  Jos- 
quin,  Bach,  Handel,  Rameau,  Gluck,  as  well 
as  Beethoven,  Schumann,  Liszt,  Brahms. 
Foreign  contemporary  music  has  been  repre- 
sented chiefly  by  Strauss,  Grieg,  and  the  Rus- 
sians. In  recent  years  the  Societe  national* 
has  been  charged  with  taking  on  too  exclu- 
sive a  character,  especially  with  guarding  the 
traditional  at  the  expense  of  the  new;  and 
the  Societe  musicale  independante  has  been 
founded  by  some  of  the  younger  men  as  a 
protest. 

In  1900  d'Indy  became  president  of  the 
Schola  Cantorum,  founded  six  years  earlier 
by  Charles  Bordes,  Alexandre  Guilmant,  and 
himself,  primarily  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
church  music  based  on  the  Gregorian  chant. 
In  his  discourse  of  inauguration  he  explained 
his  purpose  of  enlarging  the  function  of  the 
school  to  cover  all  musical  instruction;  and 

164 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


while  characteristically  insisting  that  the 
means  to  renovate  modern  music  were  to  be 
found  in  the  study  of  "the  decorative  art  of 
the  plain  chant,  the  architectural  art  of  the 
Palestrina  period,  and  the  expressive  art  of  the 
great  Italians  of  the  seventeenth  century," 
yet  promised  to  take  his  students  "through 
the  same  path  that  art  has  followed,  so  that, 
undergoing  in  their  period  of  study  the  trans- 
formations music  has  undergone  through  the 
centuries,  they  will  emerge  from  it  so  much 
the  better  armed  for  the  modern  combat,  in 
that  they  will  have  lived,  so  to  speak,  the 
life  of  art,  and  will  have  assimilated  in  their 
natural  order  the  forms  which  have  logically 
succeeded  each  other  in  the  different  epochs  of 
artistic  development."  Both  in  the  special 
leaning  toward  the  music  of  the  church  which 
his  devout  and  somewhat  mystical  tempera- 
ment here  suggested,  and  in  the  broad  eclecti- 
cism with  which  his  intelligence  insisted  on 
combining  it,  he  showed  clearly  the  influence 
of  his  master  Cesar  Franck,  whom  indeed  he 
asserted  to  be  in  a  sense  "the  grandfather  of 
this  Schola  Cantorum,  since  it  is  his  system  of 

165 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

teaching  that  we  endeavor  to  continue  and 
apply  here."  Like  his  master  he  wished  to 
cultivate  in  his  students  both  a  solid  learning, 
without  which  nothing  vital  can  be  contrib- 
uted to  art,  and  the  enthusiasm  without  which 
it  degenerates  into  pedantry.  To  understand 
the  great  influence  for  good  exerted  on  French 
music  by  the  Schola,  we  need  only  recall  d'Indy's 
description  of  "the  noble  teaching  of  Cesar 
Franck,  founded  on  Bach  and  Beethoven,  but 
admitting  besides  all  enthusiasms,  all  new  and 
generous  aspirations."  l 

In  the  sixteen  years  that  d'Indy  has  been 
at  the  head  of  the  Schola  Cantorum  he  has 
accomplished  an  amount  of  unselfish  labor 
for  the  advancement  of  music  that  would 
have  been  extraordinary  under  any  circum- 
stances, and  becomes  almost  incredible  when 
we  remember  that  in  the  same  period  he  has 
produced  over  half  a  dozen  original  works  of 
the  first  importance.  He  is  indeed  a  man 
of  unusual  physical,  nervous,  and  mental 
strength,  accustomed  to  indefatigable  labor. 
Thus  in  addition  to  all  his  teaching  he  organ- 

1  Ctsar  Franck,  by  Vincent  d'Indy. 
1 66 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


izes  operatic  performances  and  choral,  orches- 
tral, and  chamber-music  concerts  ;  he  conducts, 
and  teaches  others  to  conduct;  he  edits  the 
classics  —  Rameau,  Destouches,  Solomon  de 
Rossi — and  the  folk-songs  of  his  native  moun- 
tains of  the  Vivarais ;  he  gives  lectures  and 
makes  studies  of  the  predecessors  of  Beethoven, 
of  Franck ;  he  writes  criticisms  for  the  monthly 
press ;  and,  most  serviceable  of  all  perhaps  to 
distant  students,  he  describes  the  principles  of 
his  art  in  a  masterly  and  exhaustive  treatise, 
the  "Cours  de  composition  musicale,"  unfor- 
tunately not  yet  translated  into  English. 

And  all  this  is  only  his  winter  work.  In 
the  summer  he  retires  to  his  chateau  of  Faugs, 
near  the  little  mountain  village  of  Boffres, 
in  Ardeche,  and  there,  in  a  room  in  the  tower, 
whence  on  a  clear  day  he  can  see  Mt.  Blanc, 
he  composes  the  works  in  which  these  prin- 
ciples are  so  nobly  exemplified.  Besides  the 
early  "Chant  de  la  Cloche,"  by  which  he  won 
the  grand  prize  of  the  city  of  Paris  in  1885  and 
first  established  his  reputation,  he  has  written 
three  other  large  choral  works  :  the  two  operas 
"Fervaal"  (1895)  and  "L'Etranger"  (1901), 

167 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

and  the  oratorio  "La  Legende  de  St.  Chris- 
tophe,"  recently  completed.  For  orchestra, 
aside  from  the  early  trilogy  of  symphonic 
poems  "Wallenstein,"  over-Wagnerian  in 
inspiration,  and  other  early  or  lesser  works, 
there  are  four  masterpieces  of  the  first  order : 
"Istar,"  symphonic  variations,  1896;  the  sec- 
ond Symphony,  in  B  flat,  1904;  the  sym- 
phony, "Un  Jour  d'fite  a  la  Montagne," 
1905;  and  the  symphonic  poem  "Souvenirs," 
written  to  the  memory  of  his  wife,  1906.  This 
incomplete  list  may  be  finished  with  three 
equally  masterly  chamber-music  pieces :  the 
second  String  Quartet,  E  major,  1897;  the 
Violin  Sonata,  1904,  and  the  Piano  Sonata, 
1907  —  not  to  mention  the  youthful  Piano 
Quartet  of  1878,  or  the  delightful  Trio  for 
Clarinet,  Violoncello,  and  Piano  of  1887. 

What,  then,  are  these  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  composition  which  d'Indy  has  in- 
sisted upon  in  his  teaching,  promulgated  in 
the  "Cours  de  composition  musicale,"  and 
exemplified  in  his  works  ?  They  are  all,  in 
essence,  but  differing  forms  of  the  central 
principle  of  all  art,  of  all  beauty  —  that  the 

168 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


utmost  variety  must  be  but  the  outgrowth 
and  flowering  of  a  perfect  unity.  We  have 
seen  that  many  modern  composers,  baffled 
by  the  richness  of  the  materials  with  which 
they  had  to  deal,  have  failed  in  the  effort 
thus  to  stamp  unity  upon  them :  their  art 
has  been  confused  and  fragmentary.  Others 
again  —  the  pseudo-classics  and  reactionaries 
—  have  resorted  to  a  violent  simplification  of 
the  material  in  order  to  preserve  unity,  and 
have  thus  impoverished  their  art.  Only  the 
greatest,  in  the  first  rank  of  whom  must  be 
placed  Franck  and  d'Indy,  have  had  at  once 
a  firm  enough  hold  upon  musical  tradition 
and  a  broad  enough  command  of  new  methods 
and  idioms  to  write  music  at  once  various 
and  unified,  at  once  thoroughly  "  modern " 
and  thoroughly  sane.  To  this  unifying  power 
of  d'Indy's  mind  M.  Rolland  pays  a  fine 
tribute.  "Clearness  !"  he  cries,  "it  is  the  mark 
of  M.  d'Indy's  intelligence.  There  are  no 
shadows  in  him.  His  thought  and  his  art  are 
as  clear  as  his  look,  which  gives  to  his  face  so 
much  of  youth.  It  is  a  necessity  for  him  to 
judge,  to  order,  to  classify,  to  unify.  Never 

169 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

was  there  a  spirit  more  French.  .  .  .  And 
this  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  his  nature 
is  far  from  being  simple.  Through  a  wide 
musical  education,  a  constant  desire  to  learn, 
it  has  been  enriched  by  many  elements,  dif- 
ferent, almost  contradictory.  .  .  .  Not  to  be 
submerged  by  this  richness  of  opposing  elements 
requires  a  great  force  of  passion  or  of  will, 
which  eliminates  or  chooses  and  transforms. 
M.  d'Indy  eliminates  almost  nothing :  he  or- 
ganizes. There  are  in  his  music  the  qualities 
of  a  general :  the  knowledge  of  the  end,  the 
patient  will  to  attain  it,  the  perfect  acquaint- 
ance with  the  means,  the  spirit  of  order,  and 
the  mastery  over  his  work  and  over  himself. 
Despite  the  variety  of  the  materials  he  em- 
ploys, the  whole  is  always  clear." 

II 

If  we  examine,  as  typical  of  d'Indy's  mature 
style,  a  passage  such  as  the  introduction  to 
the  slow  movement  of  the  B  flat  Symphony, 
shown  in  Figure  XX,  we  are  struck  at  once 
by  the  complexity  of  the  detail  —  the  bold 
unexpectedness  of  the  melodic  lines,  the 

170 


.VINCENT     D'INDY 


chromatic  harmony,  the  constantly  varying 
rhythms  —  and  by  the  perfect  final  clearness 
with  which  it  nevertheless  impresses  us,  so 
that  each  note  seems  inevitable  and  the  whole 
unmistakable  in  meaning.  It  is  this  com- 


FlGURE   XX. 


Moderement  lent 

*i   I  motive  a  I  * 


^_S? 


-motive  3- 


*2 


bination  of  complexity  and  simplicity,  char- 
acteristic more  or  less  of  all  really  great 
modern  composers  but  perhaps  to  a  peculiar 
degree  of  d'Indy,  that  we  have  to  analyze 
and  account  for  to  ourselves  in  some  detail  if 
we  would  thoroughly  understand  his  music. 
What  is  the  mysterious  power  in  him  that 

171 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

enables  him  to  give  so  distinctly  personal  a 
stamp  to  elements  drawn  from  so  many 
sources  ?  What  is  the  unifying  principle  in 
all  this  variety  ?  What  lifts  this  insatiable 
student  above  his  studies,  and  renders  his 
knowledge  not  a  dead  lumber  weighing  down 
his  mind,  but  a  living  force  making  it  fruitful  ? 
For  of  the  extent  of  these  studies,  benumbing 
to  any  but  the  freshest  mind,  there  is  plenty 
of  evidence  in  his  work  as  well  as  in  his 
critical  writings;  if  it  were  worth  while  we 
might  enumerate  "  influences  "  at  great  length. 
There  would  be,  for  instance,  the  fundamental 
influence  of  Bach  and  Beethoven,  and  the 
more  superficial  influence  of  the  romantics, 
Schumann  and  Mendelssohn,  as  shown  in 
"  Wallenstein "  (1873-1879),  and  other  early 
works.  There  would  be  the  potent  Wagne- 
rian  influence,  of  which  "Fervaal"  is  the  chief 
monument,  although  it  appears  in  all  that 
he  has  written ;  and  there  would  be  the  even 
more  pervasive  and  inspiring  influence  of  his 
master,  Franck.  We  should  have  to  take 
account,  too,  of  the  reflection,  especially  in 
later  works  like  the  piano  sonata,  the  violin 

172 


VINCENT    D'INDY 


sonata,  and  the  second  symphony,  of  the 
harmonic  idiom  of  Debussy  and  other  con- 
temporaries, the  whole- tone  scale,  and  the 
like.  And  under  these  individual  influences 
we  should  find  more  general,  subtle,  and 
pervasive  ones,  we  should  find  the  great  com- 
munal streams  of  the  French  folk-song  and 
the  Gregorian  plain  chant.  Yet  all  these 
streams,  and  others  too  many  to  mention, 
have  been  gathered  up  into  one  clear  per- 
sonality. What  has  been  the  transmuting 
magic  ? 

The  composer  himself  suggests  the  answer 
in  several  passages  that  may  here  be  brought 
together. 

"It  is  perfectly  logical,"  he  writes  in  Mer- 
cure  de  France?  "and  in  the  order  of  things 
that,  when  a  man  of  genius  shows  himself 
in  one  country,  the  artists  of  the  other  nations 
try  to  assimilate  his  processes.  I  see  nothing 
reprehensible  in  that,  and  this  international 
free  trade  even  appears  to  me  one  of  the  vital 
conditions  of  the  development  of  art.  .  .  . 

1  Inquest  on  the  influence  of  Germany,  especially  of  Wagner, 
on  French  music,  January,  1903. 

173 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

Moreover,  can  the  artist  ever,  in  spite  of  all 
influences,  give  anything  else  than  the  art  that 
he  carries  in  himself?" 

"You  ask  me,"  he  says  to  an  interviewer 
of  the  Revue  Bleue*  "to  define  French  music. 
In  reality  there  is  no  French  music,  and  in 
general  there  is  no  national  music.  There  is 
music,  which  is  of  no  country;  there  are 
musical  masterpieces,  which  belong  to  no  one 
nation."  He  is  led  on  to  an  interesting  com- 
parison of  our  period,  in  its  desire  for  greater 
simplicity,  with  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  the  illuminating  statement:  "M. 
Debussy  is  a  little  our  Monteverde;  he  aban- 
dons melody  for  recitative,  for  'the  represen- 
tative style,'  as  they  said  in  the  first  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century;  he  renounces  the 
resources  of  counterpoint,  he  even  foregoes 
modulation."  But  when  the  interviewer,  seek- 
ing to  entrap  him  into  condemnation  of  his 
contemporary  which  would  make  good  copy, 
asks,  "And  do  you  not  desire  rather  the  tri- 
umph of  melody  and  polyphony?"  he  replies: 

*"  Revue  Politique  et  Litteraire"  (Revue  Bleue),  March  26, 
1904. 

174 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


"I  have  but  one  desire;  it  is  that  they  write 
beautiful  things."  The  third  passage  is  one 
of  the  axioms  that  he  gives  to  his  students 
at  the  Schola  Cantorum :  "All  processes  are 
good,  on  condition  that  they  never  become  the 
principal  end,  but  are  regarded  only  as  means 
for  making  music."  And  finally  he  makes  his 
meaning  even  more  definite  in  a  discussion  of 
M.  Roger  Ducasse : l  "I  am  sure  that  when 
M.  Ducasse  is  willing  to  trust  himself  more  to 
the  impulses  of  his  heart  rather  than  to  re- 
searches in  sonorities,  he  will  be  able  to  make 
very  beautiful  music.  There  is  in  art,  truly, 
nothing  but  the  heart  that  can  produce  beauty 
—  (//  n'est  vraiment,  en  art,  que  le  cceur  pour 
engendrer  de  la  beaute)." 

Yes,  it  is  his  heart  that  guides  his  mind 
through  the  mazes  of  its  knowledge ;  it  is  his 
luminous  sincerity  that  shines  through  all  he 
writes,  however  complex  it  may  be  in  detail; 
both  the  warmth  and  the  light  of  his  music 
come  from  his  emotion.  Responsive  emotion 
in  the  listener,  accordingly,  is  the  key  to  the 
intricacies  of  his  style.  If  we  attend  to  the 

1  Revue  Musicale  S.  7.  M.,  February  15,  1913. 
175 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

letter  only  we  are  baffled,  bewildered  :  there 
are  so  many  notes,  such  queer  progressions, 
in  that  passage  from  the  symphony,  for  ex- 
ample. But  if  we  hearken  for  the  spirit,  all 
becomes  clear,  and  strangely  moving.  It  is 
waxing  and  waning  feeling,  a  wave  of  emotion, 
that  expresses  itself  in  that  rise  to  the  strident 
B  of  the  fourth  measure  and  in  the  subsequent 
hesitating  descent.  And  as  emotion  is  the 
motive  force  of  the  whole,  emotion  it  is  also 
that  explains  the  details. 

Take  for  instance  the  very  texture  of  the 
melody.  We  note  two  contrasting  figures 
or  motives,,  one,  which  we  may  call  a,  melan- 
choly or  at  least  contemplative,  characterized 
by  the  fall  of  a  fourth,  and  another,  b,  in 
which  the  more  vigorous  rise  of  a  seventh 
gives  a  sense  of  opposing  will.  The  whole 
passage  is  wrought  from  these  two  contrast- 
ing yet  mutually  supplementing  strands  with 
singular  concentration.  There  is  not  a  note, 
save  the  chords  in  the  last  two  measures,  that 
does  not  belong  to  one  or  the  other.  There 
is  something  relentless  in  such  insistence. 
The  grip  is  not  relaxed  for  a  moment.  The 

176 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


thought  is  hammered  in.  The  music  throbs 
like  a  pulse.  Yet  there  is  in  this  insistence 
nothing  of  the  monotony  of  mere  repetition ; 
the  feeling  never  stagnates.  On  the  contrary, 
each  assertion  accumulates  fresh  force,  the 
emotion  rises  by  its  own  expression,  and  there 
is  ordered,  purposeful,  relentless  progression. 
Thus  motive  a  is  stated  first  from  D  flat; 
then,  at  *3,  from  D,  higher  and  louder;  then, 
at  *5,  from  E  flat  but  this  time  fairly  carried 
off  its  feet  by  its  oppugnant  fellow,  b.  Simi- 
larly &,  first  heard  quietly,  almost  timidly,  in 
the  bass,  in  the  key  of  D  flat,  at  *2,  is  repeated 
at  *4  more  firmly  and  in  the  key  of  D  minor, 
making  it  in  the  main  higher  than  before 
though  starting  on  the  same  note ;  finally  it 
appears  in  the  treble,  as  just  stated,  at  *5,  and 
rises  as  in  a  passionate  cry  to  the  B,  whence  it 
slowly  subsides.  In  short,  we  see  here  a 
"logic  of  emotion"  quite  as  absolute  as  that 
of  the  reason,  and  far  more  appropriate  to 
music,  in  which  mere  reason  must  be  content 
with  a  subordinate  place.  As  always  in  the 
best  music,  the  logic  of  emotion  involves 
both  the  fundamental  unity  of  the  motives 
N  177 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

(since  no  emotion  would  amount  to  much  if  it 
was  so  weak  that  it  forgot  what  it  was  about) 
and  their  gradual  cumulative  growth  in  di- 
versity as  they  realize  themselves  in  expres- 
sion. Even  d'Indy's  music  is  not  always  so 
true  to  the  logic  of  emotion  as  this,  as  we  shall 
have  occasion  later  to  notice;  even  Homer 
nods ;  but  the  motival  variety  in  unity  of  all 
good  melody,  as  a  result  of  its  emotional 
origin,  is  none  the  less  ineluctable  as  a  principle. 
Looking  again  at  the  passage  we  may  note 
more  specifically  the  interest,  vitality,  and 
flexibility  of  its  rhythms.  This  is  again,  as 
in  all  the  composer's  best  work,  ultimately 
due  to  truth  to  emotion.  Motive  b  occurs 
three  times,  but  never  twice  the  same.  The 
second  time,  at  *4,  it  enters  earlier  in  the 
measure  than  before,  as  if  impatient,  and 
ends  with  the  persistent  tramp  of  quarter 
notes.  The  third  time  it  strikes  in  almost 
roughly  (*5),  its  second  and  third  notes  are 
displaced  —  syncopated  —  by  agitation,  while 
its  last  three  notes,  comprising  the  crisis  and 
its  subsidence,  are  lengthened  out  from  a 
half  measure  to  a  measure  and  a  half.  (See 

178 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


Figure  XXI.)  We  see  thus  exemplified  the 
basic  principles  of  expression  through  rhythm, 
the  hastening  or  compression  of  the  phrase  in 
response  to  passion,  its  retardation  or  ex- 
pansion with  returning  calm.  "Expression," 


First  state ^^ 


FIGURE  XXI. 
t»l* 


^       .        >f»         H»r 

rTr  J  P  r     g 


V!  Lbitr.    g    --J  »  f  I  f 

^  py^  4     *  *  [  I  [ 


Second  state 


writes  d'Indy,1  "consists  in  the  translation  of 
sentiments  and  impressions,  by  the  aid  of  cer- 
tain characteristic  modifications,  affecting  the 
rhythmic,  melodic,  and  harmonic  forms  of  the 
musical  discourse.  .  .  .  Agogique,  consisting 
in  the  modifications  of  the  rhythmic  move- 
ment, —  precipitation,  slackening,  regular  and 
irregular  interruptions,  etc.  —  has  for  its  effect 
to  render  the  relative  impressions  of  calm  and 
agitation." 

1  Cours  de  Composition  Musicale,  Book  I,  page  123. 
179 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

Such  a  conception  of  rhythm,  emphasizing 
its  sensitive  fluctuation  in  response  to  mood, 
and  demanding  of  the  artist  complete  sin- 
cerity and  flexibility  of  expression,  is  at  the 
pole  from  the  conventional  notion  of  it  as  an 
almost  mechanical  balancing  of  equal  sections 
of  melody,  cut  off  so  to  speak  with  a  yard- 
stick. D'Indy  leaves  his  readers  in  no  doubt 
as  to  his  opinion  of  all  such  conventional 
sing-song,  the  doggerel  of  music.  "To  beat 
the  time  and  to  give  the  rhythm  of  a  musical 
phrase,"  he  says,1  "are  two  completely  dis- 
tinct operations,  often  opposed.  The  coin- 
cidence of  the  rhythm  and  the  measure  is 
an  entirely  particular  case,  which  men  have 
unfortunately  tried  to  generalize,  propagating 
the  error  that  'the  first  beat  of  the  measure 
is  always  strong.'  This  identification  of 
rhythm  with  measure  has  had  the  most 
deplorable  consequences  for  music.  .  .  . 
Rhythm,  submitted  to  the  restricting  re- 
quirements of  meter,  becomes  rapidly  im- 
poverished, even  to  the  most  desolating  plati- 
tude, just  as  a  branch  of  a  tree,  strongly 

1  Cour s,  I,  27. 
180 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


compressed  by  a  ligature,  becomes  enfeebled 
and  atrophied,  while  its  neighbors  absorb  all 
the  sap."1  Again:  "In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  bar-line  ceased  to  be  simply  a  graphic 
sign ;  it  became  a  periodic  starting  point  for 
the  rhythm,  which  it  soon  robbed  of  all  its 
liberty  and  elegance.  Hence  come  those 
symmetrical  and  square-cut  forms  to  which 
we  owe  a  great  part  of  the  platitudes  of  the 
Italianism  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries." 2  Finally,  summing  the  whole 
matter  up  in  a  sentence :  "The  carrure 
[that  is,  square-cut  phrase-balance,  symmetry 
by  measures,  narrowly  limited  to  the  number 
4  and  its  multiples]  is  an  element  of  vulgarity, 
rarely  useful  outside  of  certain  special  forms 
of  dance  music."  3 

The  vulgarity  of  the  carrure^  of  sing-song, 
as  we  may  call  it  in  English,  is  due,  it  can- 
not be  too  much  insisted  upon,  to  the  mental 
and  emotional  inertia,  the  thoughtlessness, 
the  surrender  to  the  mechanism  of  habit, 

1  See  the  present  writer's  paper  on  "The  Tyranny  of  the 
Bar-line,"  New  Music  Review,  December,  1909. 
3  Cows,  I,  217.  *  Cours,  I,  40. 

181 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

of  which  it  is  the  product  and  the  index. 
It  proceeds  from  a  conventionality  essentially 
unspontaneous,  uncreative,  a  conventionality 
that  permits  the  length  and  shape  of  the 
phrase  to  be  imposed  by  convenience,  ease, 
and  precedent  rather  than  by  the  emo- 
tion it  ought  to  incarnate.  Hence  sing- 
song is  found  not  only  in  all  music  which, 
like  so-called  "popular  songs,"  emanates  from 
trivial  people  or  from  people  only  super- 
ficially moved,  but  also  in  the  music  even  of 
sincere  composers  in  their  moments  of  in- 
attention, pretentiousness,  or  routine.  Even 
so  fine  a  composer  as  Elgar  is  frequently 
banal  in  rhythm.  On  the  other  hand,  deeply 
felt  work  always  spontaneously  assumes  in- 
dividual rhythmic  outlines ;  and  undoubtedly 
such  free  and  unstereotyped  outlines,  though 
to  the  initiated  listener  they  constitute 
one  of  its  most  potent  and  lasting  beau- 
ties, and  thus  are  an  essential  condition  of 
its  longevity,  repel  at  first  by  their  appar- 
ent eccentricity  or  "obscurity"  the  unini- 
tiated and  the  inattentive,  and  thus  postpone 

its    general    acceptance.     Thus    the    attribu- 

182 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


tion  to  d'Indy  of  "dryness"  and  "lack  of 
melody"  which  one  sometimes  hears  may  be 
taken  as  an  inverted  tribute  to  the  spon- 
taneity of  his  melody  and  especially  of  his 
rhythms.  Only  one  who  did  not  feel  sym- 
pathetically the  wide  ground  swell  of  those 
phrases  from  the  symphony  could  find  them 
groping  or  uncertain  because  they  did  not  fall 
into  exactly  four  measures.  The  moment  one 
felt  the  coordinating  force  of  their  fresh  per- 
sonal emotion  one  would  not  regret  the  absence 
of  the  conventional  strait-jackets. 

It  is  emotion  again  that  explains  his  attitude 
toward  harmony.  Just  as  he  is  ahead  of 
most  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  fundamen- 
tal and  surprisingly  neglected  matter  of 
rhythm,  because  he  conceives  it  as  so  flexible 
an  instrument  of  expression,  so  he  is  rather 
at  odds  with  many  of  them,  especially  with 
the  impressionist  school  in  his  own  country, 
on  the  much  studied  —  perhaps  over-studied  — 
question  of  harmony,  because  he  conceives 
harmony  as  primarily  expressive,  while  they 
conceive  it  as  primarily  sensuous.1  A  clue 

1  Compare  what  is  said  of  Debussy,  for  example,  above,  page  143. 

183 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

to  his  attitude  is  that  sentence  of  his  in  crit- 
icism of  Ducasse :  "I  am  sure  that  when 
M.  Ducasse  is  willing  to  trust  himself  more 
to  the  impulses  of  his  heart  rather  than  to 
researches  in  sonorities,  he  will  be  able  to 
make  very  beautiful  music."  "Researches 
in  sonorities "  —  that  is,  in  the  minds  of  the 
group  of  French  composers  led  by  Debussy, 
almost  a  synonym  for  harmony;  what  they 
ask  of  harmony  is  combinations  of  tone  de- 
licious to  the  physical  ear :  subtly,  delicately 
delicious,  no  doubt,  and  to  a  highly  refined 
ear,  but  still  aiming  consciously  at  the  ear 
rather  than  at  the  mind  or  the  heart.  The 
means  of  satisfying  such  a  desire  being  sen- 
sations, aural  sensations  ingeniously  built  up 
and  combined,  they  have  rightly  concentrated 
their  attention  on  the  single  moment  of  merged 
sounds  —  the  chord  —  rather  than  on  the 
procession  of  separate  sounds  —  the  melody, 
and  its  relation  to  other  melodies  sounding 
with  it.  "Accord,"  "sonorite"  —  these  are 
the  slogans  of  the  impressionists. 

To    d'Indy,   on    the    other    hand,   harmony, 
like  all  the  other  technical  elements  of  music,  is 

184 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


primarily  a  means  of  expression,  and  there- 
fore results  rather  from  the  confluence  of 
melodies,  themselves  dictated  by  emotion, 
than  from  the  adjustment  of  sonorities  to 
please  the  ear.  One  has  only  to  look  again 
at  the  passage  from  the  symphony  to  see  how 
such  an  attitude  works  out  in  practise.  There 
is  no  preoccupation  here  with  " effect";  the 
harmony,  one  might  almost-  say,  receives  no 
attention  for  itself,  but  is  solely  a  result  of 
the  melodic  movements ;  yet  so  free  and  ex- 
pressive are  these  movements,  so  truly  con- 
ceived to  voice  the  emotions  behind  them, 
and  combined  with  such  art,  that  this  result- 
ant harmony  is  far  more  poignant,  far  more 
fresh  and  unexpected  and  striking  than  if  it 
had  been  confected  for  itself  alone.  And 
this  is  natural  and  easily  comprehensible, 
since  we  should  not  expect  any  amount  of 
ingenuity  spent  on  the  single  chord  to  achieve 
the  results  that  melodies,  feeling  out  into  the 
unknown,  easily  attain.  Such  an  attitude 
toward  harmony  requires,  it  is  true,  a  certain 
daring :  you  cannot  swim  with  your  feet  on 
the  ground ;  but  the  freedom  of  movement 

185 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

you    get   by    trusting   yourself   to    the   waves 
amply  compensates  your  faith. 

This  melodic  conception  of  harmony  has 
always  been  a  fundamental  characteristic  of 
d'Indy's  style,  as  examples  from  widely  sun- 
dered periods  will  easily  show.  The  first,  Fig- 
ure XXII,  is  a  bit  from  the  Chant  Elegiaque 
in  the  early  Trio  for  Clarinet,  Cello,  and 
Piano  (1887).  The  charming  unexpectedness 

FIGURE  XXII. 

From  Chant  Elegiaque,  in  Trio  for  Clarinet,  Cello,  and  Piano. 
Lent, 


Cello 


Piano 


of  the  twist  back  into  E  major  is  thorough 
d'Indy,  as  is  also  the  use  of  a  persistent  figure 
(given  to  the  cello  in  the  original)  and  the 
rhythmic  modification  of  this  same  figure 
to  provide  the  bass  in  the  second  measure. 
The  second  passage,  shown  in  Figure  XXIII, 

1 86 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


dates    from    thirty    years    later,    and    appears 
in  "Souvenirs"  (1906).     Here  again  the  melo- 


FlGURE   XXIII. 

From  "  Souvenirs." 


Tres  lent 

JT1 


dim. 


dies  "find  a  way,"  and  a  more  interesting, 
vista-opening  way  than  any  sonorities  could 
suggest.  Such  passages  enable  us  to  get  the 
full  sense  of  what  their  composer  means  when 
he  writes  :  "The  study  of  chords  for  themselves 
is,  from  the  musical  point  of  view,  an  absolute 
aesthetic  error,  for  harmony  springs  from 
melody,  and  ought  never  to  be  separated  from 
it  in  its  application.  .  .  .  There  is  only  one 
chord,  the  perfect  chord  [triad],  alone  con- 

187 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

sonant,  because  it  alone  gives  the  sense  of 
repose  or  equilibrium.  All  the  combinations 
that  people  call  'dissonant  chords,'  necessi- 
tating, in  order  to  be  examined,  an  artificial 
arrest  in  the  melodies  that  constitute  them, 
have  no  proper  existence,  since  in  making 
abstraction  of  the  movement  that  engenders 
them,  one  suppresses  their  unique  reason  for 
being.  Chords  have  too  often  become  the  end 
of  music ;  they  ought  never  to  be  anything 
but  a  means,  a  consequence,  a  phenomenon 
essentially  transient."  l  It  may  be  held  that 
d'Indy  sometimes  goes  too  far  in  his  denuncia- 
tions of  harmonic  theories  based  on  the  con- 
ception of  the  "chord,"  as  for  example  in 
his  note  on  the  famous  opening  phrase  of 
"Tristan  and  Isolde."  It  may  also  be  justly 
remarked  that  his  own  method  is  not  always 
happy  in  its  results  —  that  the  way  his  melo- 
dies find  is  sometimes  an  obscure  and  wan- 
dering, or  an  unnatural  and  forced  way. 
Nevertheless  it  remains  on  the  whole  true  that 
on  the  one  hand  the  chord  conception  of  har- 
mony has  been  responsible  for  a  vast  mass  of 

1Cours,  I,  91  and  116. 

188 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


pedantry,  and  has  paralyzed  and  hamstrung 
whole  generations  of  students,  and  that  on 
the  other  hand  it  favors  the  purely  sensuous 
trifling  with  tones  of  which  there  is  so  much 
in  our  day;  while  the  best  pages  of  Bach, 
Beethoven,  Brahms,  Wagner,  Franck,  d'Indy 
show  a  thousand  beauties  and  poignancies 
which  without  the  help  of  melody  could  never 
have  been  discovered. 

In  the  course  of  Kaito's  prophecy,  in  "Fer- 
vaal,"  there  is  a  deeply  moving  passage  to  the 
words:  "Only  Death,  baleful  Death,  shall 
summon  Life,"  which  strikingly  illustrates 
its  composer's  way  of  making  all  the  elements 
of  music  contribute  to  expression  (see  Figure 
XXIV).  Here  the  upward  inflection  of  the 
voice,  the  strange  intervals,  the  vague  har- 
monies, the  halting  movement,  even  the  sigh- 
ing syncopation  of  the  bass,  all  contribute  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  opening  lines.  But 
above  all,  how  inexplicably  stirring  is  the 
gradual  increase  of  force  and  rise  of  pitch  up 
to  the  clear  chord  of  D  major  (note  the  com- 
poser's indication,  "Clair")  at  the  word 

"Life"    ("Vie")!    Gloom    and    mystery    give 

189 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


FIGURE  XXIV. 


I 


?\*   f 


Seu  -  le       la     Mort 


. 

l'in-ju-ri-eu  -  se 


P 


TL^ 


Jlpjpjp 

animant 


^mip 

Clair 


s 


p^ 


Vi- 


np 


u1 


place  to  hope,  faith,  will,  to  which  the  ecclesi- 
astical harmonies  lend  an  unmistakable  re- 
ligious coloring.  This  change,  completely 
spontaneous  in  effect,  is  dictated  by  an  art 
that  conceals  itself,  and  introduces  us  to  one 

190 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


of  the  most  individual  features  of  d'Indy's 
harmonic  technique,  his  ease  of  modulation. 
In  his  Cours  de  Composition  Musicale  he  has 
worked  out  his  theories  of  the  expressive  use 
of  modulation  with  characteristic  thorough- 
ness, and  with  unprecedented  amplitude  of 
detail.  To  resume  his  points  here,  however, 
interesting  as  they  are,  would  take  us  too 
deeply  into  technical  matters,  especially  as 
our  main  interest  is  now  in  his  application 
rather  than  in  his  statement  of  them.  The 
essential  principles  may  therefore  be  briefly 
summarized,  in  his  own  words,  as  follows  : 

(1)  "Expression    is    the   unique    reason    for 
being  of  modulation." 

(2)  "Modulation    operates    by   a    displace- 
ment of    the   tonic    ['key-note'],  by  its   oscil- 
lation towards  the  higher  fifths  [that  is,  towards 
the  sharper  keys,  as  to  G,  D,  A,  etc.,  from  C] 
or  towards  the  lower  fifths   [that  is,   towards 
the  flatter  keys,  as   to  F,  B  flat,  E  flat,  etc., 
from  C]." 

(3)  "Modulation  has  for  its  effect  to  ren- 
der   relative    impressions    of    brightness    [that 
is,   movement  towards   sharper  keys  produces 

191 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

1  eclair  cissemeni*\  or  of  darkness  [movement 
towards  flatter  keys  produces  *  assombrisse- 
ment']" 

(4)  "Modulation  can  never  be  the  end  of 
music,  since  it  is  by  its  very  nature  a  means 
put  at  the  service  of  the  musical  idea.  Every 
modulation  which  has  not  this  character  of 
subordination  to  the  idea  is  thereby  inoppor- 
tune, useless,  and  even  injurious  to  the  equi- 
librium of  the  composition." 1 

Looking  back  at  our  examples  in  the  light 
of  these  principles,  and  especially  with  the 
illumination  afforded  by  the  text  in  Kaito's 
contrast  of  death  and  life,  we  shall  find  a 
further  element  of  art  to  admire  in  them  — 
their  expressive  use  of  modulation.  The  slow 
movement  of  the  symphony  begins  in  the 
comparatively  "dark"  key  of  D  flat,  but 
touches  in  the  fourth  measure,  at  the  acme  of 
the  climax,  the  brighter  D  major,  whence  with 
the  waning  emotion  it  subsides  to  the  original 
key.  The  passage  cited  from  the  Chant 
elegiaque  emerges  from  the  shades  of  E  flat 
minor  to  the  bright  daylight  of  E  major 

1  Cours,  Book  I,  pp.  126  and  132;  Book  II,  Part  I,  p.  245. 
192 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


(wherein  starts  a  new  statement  of  the  main 
theme).  The  fragment  from  "Souvenirs" 
commences  in  quiet  grief,  in  the  clear  but 
rather  subdued  key  of  A  minor ;  with  the  third 
measure  a  downward  inflection,  a  sort  of  de- 
pression of  mood,  sinks  it  to  hopeless  groping 
in  the  glooms  of  G  flat  and  C  flat,  whence  it 
again  struggles  forth  to  new  assertion,  in  A 
minor,  in  the  phrase  that  follows  our  excerpt. 
Stated  in  bald  technical  terms  like  these, 
such  changes  may  seem  crude,  obvious,  me- 
chanical; but  anyone  who  will  listen  sympa- 
thetically to  the  music  in  which  they  are  em- 
bodied by  a  master  will  realize  the  infinite 
variety  and  subtlety  of  their  appeal,  jj 

A  later  appearance  of  this  same  theme  in 
"  Souvenirs,"  in  which  for  the  first  two  notes 
in  the  second  measure  is  substituted  a  triplet, 
F,  G,  E,  suggests  the  further  remark  that  even 
ornament,  so  apt  to  be  used  merely  for  show, 
is  employed  by  d'Indy,  like  so  many  more 
basic  resources,  singly  for  expression.  His 
somewhat  severe  conception  of  art  —  there  is 
much  in  his  style  that,  especially  in  contrast 
with  German  sensuousness,  is  austere,  bare, 
o  193 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

almost  stark  —  leads  him  to  condemn  super- 
ficial decoration.  "The  fioriture  of  the  Ital- 
ian dramatic  school  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century,"  he  insists,  "intended  only  to  dis- 
play the  vocal  agility  of  the  singer  (just  as  the 
Variation  of  Chopin,  although  more  musical, 
puts  forward  the  fingers  of  the  pianist),  this 
fioriture,  consisting  usually  of  embroideries 
about  an  arpeggio,  is  truly  more  harmonic 
than  melodic  —  and  even  the  harmony  is 
usually  extremely  banal.  The  character- 
istic of  the  accomplished  and  conscientious 
artist  is  a  firm  will  to  treat  only  subjects 
that  have  a  value  in  themselves,  not  bor- 
rowed from  the  apparel  in  which  they  are 
dressed  up."  l  And  he  elsewhere  succinctly 
defines  the  Italian  fioriture  as  "that  art  which 
consists  in  making  heard  the  greatest  number 
of  useless  notes  in  the  shortest  space  of 
time." 2  But  he  takes  pains  to  distinguish 
"this  surcharge  dictated  by  bad  taste"  from 
the  more  essential  ornament  used  in  the  "ex- 
pressive vocalises  of  J.  S.  Bach  and  his  con- 
temporaries, which,  like  the  Gregorian  Varia- 

1  Cours,  Book  II,  Part  I,  pp.  454,  452.       *  Cows,  II,  I,  165. 
194 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


tion  from  which  they  derive,  form,  a  part 
of  the  melody."  And  he  cites  with  approval 
melodies  like  the  theme  of  the  Allegretto  in 
Franck's  Symphony,  in  which  a  short  phrase 
is  repeated  not  literally  but  with  ornamental 
variation  resulting  from  the  natural  progres- 
sion of  the  thought  or  feeling  —  from  what, 
in  short,  we  have  called  the  logic  of  emotion. 
Such  treatment  is  almost  a  mannerism  in  his 
own  work.  Other  instances,  besides  the  place 
in  "Souvenirs"  just  cited,  are  the  first  theme 
of  the  violin  sonata,  the  fugato  in  the  first 
movement  of  the  quartet,  the  main  theme  of 
the  same  movement,  and  the  main  theme  of 
"Evening"  in  the  "Summer  Day  on  the 
Mountain"  (Figure  XXVII,  a). 

Finally,  even  in  the  matter  of  orchestration, 
the  least  essential  of  any  we  have  considered, 
d'Indy  is  still  guided  by  the  same  principle  — 
truth  to  feeling.  Though  universally  ac- 
knowledged, even  by  those  who  dislike  his 
music,  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  living  masters 
of  the  resources  of  the  orchestra,  he  never 
uses  these  resources,  as  does  for  example 
Rimsky-Korsakoff,  in  a  spirit  of  sheer  vir- 

195 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

tuosity.  Nothing  in  his  scores  is  put  there  to 
dazzle  or  to  stun;  all  is  for  eloquent  musical 
speech ;  and  when  there  is  great  liveliness  or 
brilliancy,  as  there  often  is  —  at  the  end  of 
"Istar,"  for  instance,  in  the  scherzo  of  the 
B-flat  symphony,  and  in  "Dawn"  of  the 
"Summer  Day  on  the  Mountain"  —  it  is  in 
response  not  to  an  opportunity  for  display, 
but  to  a  mood.  The  sharp  contrast  of  the 
general  method  of  scoring  with  Wagner's, 
especially  in  a  composer  so  largely  indebted 
to  Wagner,  is  highly  instructive  in  this  regard. 
Wagner  in  his  love  of  rich  sonorities  almost 
habitually  doubles  different  groups  of  instru- 
ments on  a  single  melody;  d'Indy  prefers  the 
single  group,  not  only  for  its  superior  clarity 
but  even  more,  one  must  think,  for  the  greater 
eloquence  of  its  individual  voice.  The  pas- 
sage quoted  from  the  symphony  is  a  good 
sample  of  his  methods.  First  violins  on  their 
G  strings  for  the  opening  phrase,  sounding  at 
once  the  right  note  of  earnestness.  Bass 
clarinet  alone  on  motive  b.  Both  first  and 
second  violins  for  the  more  emphatic  repeti- 
tion of  the  main  motive,  and  the  low  strings  in 

196 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


their  more  impassioned  accents  for  the  reiter- 
ation of  the  bass  clarinet  phrase.  Then  all 
the  violins  and  the  violas  for  the  third,  cul- 
minating statement,  —  the  first  violins  leaving 
off  with  the  B  flat,  the  seconds  with  the  A, 
and  the  violas,  in  their  more  veiled  tones,  alone 
carrying  the  phrase  down  to  its  final  A  flat. 

Thus  does  d'Indy  use  the  various  ele- 
ments of  musical  technique  —  melody,  rhythm, 
harmony,  modulation,  and  even  ornament 
and  orchestration  —  in  the  interests  of  emo- 
tion. Before  asking  whether  the  same 
principle  that  we  thus  see  so  multifariously 
at  work  in  short  sections  of  his  music 
can  also  be  traced  in  the  marshaling  of  its 
larger  masses,  let  us  take  one  final  example 
of  its  operation  within  conveniently  narrow 
limits.  In  Figure  XXV  (pages  198,  199)  is 
shown  the  coda  of  the  first  movement  of  the 
string  quartet  in  E  major,  his  masterpiece  in 
chamber  music.  It  is  entirely  derived  from 
the  fragment  of  Gregorian  chant  used  as  a  text. 
We  may  note  summarily  the  following  points, 
which  by  no  means  exhaust  the  interest  of  the 
passage. 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

I.  Melodic.  There  is  no  salient  phrase 
which  is  not  derived  from  the  root  motive. 
As  for  the  variety,  the  reader  will  judge  for 
himself.  This  is  a  supreme  case  of  the  ger- 
minating power  of  a  musical  thought. 

FIGURE  XXV. 

Coda  of  the  first  movement  of  the  String  Quartet  in  E,  opus  45 
(1897),  based  on  the  fragment  from  a  Gregorian  chant: 


1 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


molto  cresc. 


-r   r 


*      ^ 


2.  Rhythmic.  The  original  nucleus  of  the 
theme  is  rhythmed  mainly  in  quarter  notes. 
It  is  reduced  to  even  eighth  notes  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  coda,  and  in  that  murmuring, 

199 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

inconspicuous  form  stays  on  a  dead  level,  so 
to  speak,  and  makes  a  colorless  background 
of  accompaniment  whence  the  more  passion- 
ate main  phrases  detach  themselves  sharply. 
Beginning  in  the  fifth  measure  the  second 
violin  sounds  an  augmented  form  of  the  motive 
(whole  notes),  in  expression  tentative,  timid. 
This  recurs  in  the  viola  in  measure  II,  with 
more  of  emphasis,  and  is  broken  in  upon  by  a 
syncopated  form  of  the  same  (beginning  on  the 
second  half  of  the  measure)  from  the  first 
violin.  The  C  sharp  here  is  the  crest  of  the 
emotional  wave,  whence  it  subsides  first  by 
the  gradual  descent  of  the  motive  through 
three  octaves  in  measures  17-20,  and  then  by 
the  flagging  of  the  accompaniment  rhythm 
first  to  quarter  notes,  then  to  half  notes.  Still 
a  different  rhythm  is  heard  in  the  last  an- 
nouncement by  the  first  violin. 

3.  Harmonic.     The   harmony   is    absolutely 
the  product  of  concurrent   melodies   through- 
out.    No   notes    are   added   merely   for   color. 
Yet  the  sonorities,  though  effects  rather  than 
causes,  are  unforgettable. 

4.  Modulatory.     The  first  measure  strongly 

200 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


establishes  E  major  as  the  tonal  center,  and 
as  the  goal  of  what  preceded  the  excerpt.  A 
subtle  change  of  the  violin  figure  obscures  the 
sense  of  tonality  (by  suggesting  the  atonal 
"whole-tone  scale"),  whereupon  the  first 
meditative  version  of  the  theme  appears  in 
the  much  darker  key  of  A  flat.  The  tonality 
is  again  clouded,  and  the  theme  appears  once 
more  in  A,  brighter  than  A  flat,  but  less  bright 
than  the  original  E.  The  reappearance  of 
this  therefore,  in  the  fifteenth  measure,  has 
the  effect  of  an  "  eclair  is  sement"  The  tonic 
of  E  major  is  maintained  through  the  last 
eleven  measures,  giving  a  grateful  sense  of 
homecoming,  of  repose  after  adventure. 

5.  Instrumental.  The  student  is  referred 
to  the  score  for  detail.  Particularly  notable 
are  the  keenness  of  the  violin  E  string  at  the 
moment  of  climax,  and  the  earnest  virility  of 
the  G  string  in  the  last  statement. 

Ill 

The  same  loyalty  to  emotional  truth  that 
dictates  all  these  processes  of  detail,  guides 
also  d'Indy's  treatment  of  a  composition  con- 


20 1 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

sidered  as  a  whole.  His  conception  of  form, 
though  set  forth  in  the  Cours  in  largely  in- 
tellectual terms,  can  be  thoroughly  under- 
stood only  when  traced  back  to  its  emotional 
basis.  Because  for  him  a  piece  of  music  must 
hang  together  emotionally,  must  proceed,  that 
is,  all  from  a  few  ideas,  and  must  evolve  these 
freely  and  variously  in  obedience  to  the  logic 
of  emotion,  he  takes  as  his  central  principle 
Variation,  or  germination  from  root  themes. 
Not  only,  he  believes,  should  the  single  move- 
ment thus  proceed  from  a  few  themes,  but 
the  entire  work,  according  to  what  is  called 
cyclic  form,  should  result  from  their  transfor- 
mation and  recombination.  In  other  words, 
just  as  the  rhythmic  waxing  and  waning 
of  the  emotions  embodied  in  a  few  themes 
gives  rise  to  the  single  movement,  the  regard- 
ing of  the  same  themes  from  different  points  of 
view,  or  under  the  domination  of  varying  moods, 
will  naturally  generate  the  contrasted  move- 
ments, all  thematically  related,  of  cyclic  form. 
It  may  at  once  be  admitted  that  such  a 
conception  of  form  has  its  pitfalls.  The 
same  process  that  in  the  glow  of  creative 

202 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


emotion  is  a  spontaneous  reshaping  of  a  theme 
to  meet  a  new  situation  may  in  the  absence 
of  such  emotion  degenerate  into  a  hammering 
of  recalcitrant  matter  into  mere  distortion 
and  ineptitude.  That  is  what  we  note  too 
often  in  Liszt's  similar  theme  transforma- 
tions in  his  symphonic  poems,  as  when  in 
"Les  Preludes"  he  makes  his  love  cantabile 
do  reluctant  duty  as  a  trumpet  call  to  war. 
D'Indy,  let  us  confess  it,  is  by  no  means  guilt- 
less on  this  score ;  in  uninspired  moments  he 
becomes  too  easily  the  slave  instead  of  the 
master  of  his  process ;  living  form  stiffens  into 
dead  formula ;  and  we  have  a  more  or  less 
mechanical  rearrangement  of  notes,  as  for 
instance  that  of  the  main  theme  of  the  finale 
in  the  B  flat  Symphony,  based  on  the  choral 
at  the  end,  masquerading  as  a  genuine  rein- 
carnation. Such  scholastic  passages  do  in- 
deed appear  as  blemishes  in  too  many  even  of 
his  finest  works.  But  it  is  fair  to  judge  a  pro- 
cess not  by  its  occasional  abuse,  but  by  the 
possibilities  a  felicitous  use  of  it  opens  up. 
These  possibilities  in  the  case  of  cyclic  form 
are  a  maximum  of  diversity  without  diffuse- 

203 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

ness,  and  a  maximum  of  unity  without  monot- 
ony or  platitude. 

That  a  development  of  something  of  the 
sort  was  indispensable  to  the  progress  of  com- 
position is  evident  when  we  reflect  how  in- 
tolerable literal  recapitulation  has  become  to 
the  modern  ear.  Much  of  the  prejudice  against 
the  sonata  form  in  our  day  is  due  to  the  literal 
recapitulations  of  bunglers  in  the  use  of  it. 
The  remedy  is,  not  to  throw  overboard  the 
form,  which  is  a  natural,  flexible,  and  con- 
venient one,  but  to  bring  to  it  a  freshness  of 
feeling  which  penetrates  at  once  to  the  spirit 
of  it,  ignoring  the  letter.  Thus  d'Indy,  in 
the  slow  movement  of  the  B  flat  Symphony, 
recapitulates  the  main  theme,  shown  at  Figure 
XXVI,  0,  not  literally  but  in  subtlest  reincar- 

FIGURE  XXVI. 

(a)  Theme  of  slow  movement,  B  flat  Symphony.     (This  fol- 
lows immediately  after  the  introduction  shown  in  Figure  XX.) 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


T  n  r  T 


I    etc. 


r 


Return  of  theme  in  flute. 


^^ 


Mi4jjjj.i  IJ.  J.U  J-J- 

tj          ~FT    ^  •  •  »   t]*  r, r    i:~/ 


£ 


"^TT" 


•HnffliLJ 


m 


cresc. 


m 


itC. 


205 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

nation,  one  step  higher  in  the  scale,  though 
still  in  the  same  key,  and  transferred  from  the 
sultry  tones  of  clarinet,  horn,  English  horn, 
and  viola  to  the  pure,  pale  sonority  of  a  single 
flute,  supported  by  lightest  violin  harmonies 
(Figure  XXVI,  &).  It  is  the  same  theme,  but 
breathing  now  a  quite  new  sentiment.1 

It  is  but  a  step  from  such  a  recreated  re- 
capitulation to  a  theme  transformation  such 
as  we  find  in  the  last  movement  of  the  "Sum- 
mer Day  on  the  Mountain."  This  work  is 
not  only  its  composer's  masterpiece  in  the 
sphere  of  program  music ;  it  is  the  latest  and 
best  of  a  whole  series  of  works  2  in  which  he 
has  expressed  his  love  of  his  native  country  of 
the  Cevennes  in  southeastern  France.  "At 
this  moment,"  he  once  wrote  in  a  letter  from 
his  chateau  of  Faugs,  near  Boffres  in  Ardeche, 
"I  see  the  snowy  summits  of  the  Alps,  the 
nearer  mountains,  the  plain  of  the  Rhone,  the 

1  Compare,  also,  the  theme  of  the  Piano  Sonata,  in  E  minor, 
beginning  with  the  note  B,  with  the  same  theme  altered,  "  Muta- 
tum"  in  E  major,  beginning  with  G  sharp. 

2  See  for  instance  the  "Poeme  des  Montagnes,"  opus  15,  for 
piano,  and  the  Symphony  on  a  Mountain  Theme,  opus  25,  for 
piano  and  orchestra. 

206 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


pine  woods  that  I  know  so  well,  and  the  green, 
rich  harvest  which  has  not  yet  been  gathered. 
It  is  a  true  pleasure  to  be  here  after  the  labors 
and  the  vexations  of  the  winter.  What  they 
call  at  Paris  'the  artistic  world'  seems  afar 
off  and  a  trifling  thing.  Here  is  true  repose, 
here  one  feels  at  the  true  source  of  all  art." 

The  "Jour  d'Ete  a  la  Montagne,"  in  three 
movements,  "Aurore"  ("Dawn"),  "Jour  — 
Apres-midi  sous  les  pins  "  ("  Day  :  Afternoon 
under  the  Pines")  and  "Soir"  ("Evening"), 
is  characteristic  of  the  composer  in  that, 
despite  its  program,  there  is  in  it  little  scene- 
painting,  such  as  we  find  so  constantly  in 
Strauss  and  others.  A  memorable  suggestion 
of  dawn,  with  its  vague  shapes  in  the  half- 
light  and  its  bird  songs,  in  the  first  movement1 ; 
a  whiff  of  peasant  dance-tune  in  the  second, 
coming  up  through  the  baking  heat  under  the 
pines;  in  the  third  some  evening  chimes  from 
the  valley :  that  is  all.  It  is  the  emotional 
significance  of  the  scene  in  its  varying  aspects, 

1  Note  the  progress  from  the  dark  key  of  C  minor  to  the  bright 
B  major  in  "Dawn,"  reversed  in  "Evening,"  as  another  instance 
of  the  expressive  use  of  modulation. 

207 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


its  appeal  to  the  sympathies  and  associations 
of  a  poetic  observer,  that  interest  the  musician. 
The  main  theme  of  the  last  movement  (Figure 
XXVII,  a)  thus  suggests  the  joy  of  life  in  the 
bright  summer  afternoon;  its  activity  depicts 
no  mere  external  scene,  we  feel,  but  reflects 

FIGURE  XXVII. 
Finale  of  "Jourd'Ete." 
(a)     .     TWc  animl  et  joyeux 


g 


£ 


Tres  lent 


•g*& 


(Strings  only) 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


the  elation  of  the  sensitive  heart,  witnessing 
this  scene.  And  when,  at  the  end,  after  the 
suggestions  of  descending  night  and  the  dis- 
tant jangle  of  chimes  tempered  by  the  evening 
air,  the  same  melody  returns  in  softest  sonor- 
ities of  strings  and  in  quietest  motion  (Fig- 
ure XXVII,  £),  we  hear  in  it  again  no  merely 
objective  facts,  but  the  tranquil  evening 
thoughts  of  a  poet,  spiritualized  in  meditation. 
Never  since  he  first  essayed  such  theme  trans- 
formation in  a  large  work,  in  the  "Symphony 
on  a  Mountain  Theme"  of  1886,  which  M.  Paul 
Dukas  called  "a  single  piece  in  three  episodes," 
has  d'Indy  been  more  successful  in  drawing 
p  209 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


together    the    most    opposing    moods    by    the 
single    subjective    point    of   view    from    which 

FIGURE  XXVIII. 
(*)      Lentement 


(c)  Second  theme. 


* 


r  itf  J   *  r  r  #r  r 

j  IJH-  p  r  i^fe 


(d)  Ties  anime 


»djj  JJl^ 


7/'  ff    d     £ 


210 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


(0    Tres  lent 


$=§?=S 
"P"  flf  I 


f^O- 

^ 

i    —  *     L~ 


jgf^j 

*^T 


r^-p 
•i-rJ- 


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r 


they  are  regarded,  as  incarnated  in  a  common 
theme.  Never  has  he  written  a  more  char- 
acteristic page  than  that  lovely  breath  of 
evening  tenderness,  the  meditation  of  a  lover 
on  the  world  toward  which  darkness  and  sleep 
gently  approach. 

A  work  in  which  the  cyclic  method  is  ap- 
plied with  almost  unparalleled   rigor  and  re- 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

sourcefulness,  and  which  is  therefore  worthy 
of  detailed  analysis,  is  the  String  Quartet  in  E 
major,1  built  up  from  four  notes  of  a  Gre- 
gorian chant,  shown  at  Figure  XXV.  The 
swinging  main  theme  of  the  first  movement, 
derived  from  this  fragment  by  a  natural  rhyth- 
mic and  tonal  proliferation  (see  Figure  XXVIII, 
£),  is  not  immediately  stated,  but  is  rather 
anticipated  tentatively,  and  gradually  allowed 
to  take  shape,  by  a  process  dear  to  the  com- 
poser, first  through  imitative  bits  for  the  dif- 
ferent instruments  and  then  through  a  serious 
fugato  (Figure  XXVIII,  a).  Once  achieved  it 
is  broadly  treated,  with  a  richly  conceived  tonal 
digression  into  E  flat  major  and  return.  A 
second  theme,  of  sinuous  curve  and  fluent 
movement  (Figure  XXVIII,  c),  is  reached 
through  a  transition  passage  of  more  animated 
rhythm.  The  themes  thus  stated,  develop- 
ment begins  :  not  a  perfunctory  worrying  of 
the  themes  such  as  the  "free  fantasia"  often 
degenerates  into  in  the  hands  of  composers 
possessed  of  neither  freedom  nor  fancy,  but  a 

1  The  references  are  to  the  pocket  edition  of  the  score,  pub- 
lished by  Durand. 

212 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


dynamic  action  and  reaction  of  the  themes 
such  as  d'Indy  conceives  development  essen- 
tially to  be.  "Development,"  he  says,  "is 
.  .  .  the  action  of  the  themes  and  ideas,  and 
consequently  their  reason  for  being,  since  an 
idea  is  of  value  only  through  the  action  it  is 
capable  of  exercising.  When  there  are  several 
ideas  .  .  .  the  development  expresses  usually 
all  the  phases  of  a  struggle  between  them, 
with  the  final  triumph  of  one  and  submission 
of  the  other.  .  .  .  The  themes  comport  them- 
selves like  living  people :  they  act  and  move 
according  to  their  tendencies,  their  sentiments, 
and  their  passions.  These  modifications  show 
themselves  both  in  the  thematic  elements  which 
are  elaborated  as  if  to  surpass  themselves,  or 
are  restrained  as  if  to  become  absorbed,  and  in 
the  tonal  trajectories  which  orient  themselves 
toward  light  or  toward  darkness."  *  It  will  be 
seen  that  in  this  case  the  development  first 
(pages  9  and  10)  takes  the  aspect  of  a  quiet 
presentation  of  the  first  theme  in  dark  keys 
(E  flat  major,  etc.)  '  and  then  (from  index 
number  10,  through  the  whole  of  page  il)  of 

1  Cours  de  composition  musicale,  Book  II,  Part  I,  pp.  241-242. 
213 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

a  brief  recurrence  of  the  second  theme  and 
elimination  of  it  with  the  reviving  force  of 
the  first,  moving  through  more  energetic 
rhythms  and  brighter  tonalities  to  final  vic- 
torious reassertion.  The  themes  are  then  re- 
capitulated and  the  movement  ends  with  the 
beautiful  coda  we  have  already  examined. 

The  two  middle  movements,  too  complex  to 
analyze  in  detail,  are  based  on  themes  strik- 
ingly illustrative  of  what  was  said  a  moment 
ago  as  to  cyclic  form  arising  from  the  approach 
to  a  common  theme  from  different  angles,  or 
under  the  influence  of  varying  moods.  That 
of  the  scherzo  is  the  theme  envisaged  playfully 
(Figure  XXVIII,  d) ;  that  of  the  slow  move- 
ment (Figure  XXVIII,  i)  shapes  itself  in 
response  to  a  more  serious  contemplation.  It 
may  be  pointed  out  that  these  are  no  mere 
clever  or  learned  jugglings  with  notes,  such  as 
arise  sometimes  from  the  abuse  of  the  method ; 
not  only  are  they  true  textually  to  the  theme, 
but  each  is  a  faithful  expression  of  its  own 
mood ;  the  resulting  music  accordingly  con- 
vinces us  emotionally  as  well  as  intellectually. 

The  finale  is  a  piece  of  writing  extraordinary 
214 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


for  the  manifold  resources  developed  out  of  the 
original  theme,  for  the  bold  ingenuity  of  its 
polyphonic  and  rhythmic  combinations,  and 
for  the  variety  of  its  emotional  content.  Its 
main  theme  comes  from  the  original  motive 
by  inversion  (Figure  XXIX,  a),  and  derives  a 

FIGURE  XXIX. 

(Main  theme  of  Finale  of  String  Quartet). 
Tresvif 


(b)  Second  theme. 
dtt»     ,-< 


ffifet  bien  chante 


certain  amplitude  from  its  three  half-note 
rhythm  proceeding  deliberately  against  the 
more  agitated  two-four  of  other  parts  (es- 
pecially the  viola,  at  first,  with  a  persistent 
figure  taken  also  from  the  theme).  Its  second 

215 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

theme  also  traces  its  ancestry  back  to  the 
first  movement,  but  in  a  more  elusive  way ;  a 
comparison  of  Figure  XXIX,  b,  with  Figure 
XXVIII,  c,  will  reveal  the  connection.  The 
elaboration  of  these  themes,  and  of  the  quaint 
staccato  bridge  passage  between  them,  leads 
to  most  unexpected  combinations.  The  fu- 
gato  of  the  first  movement  reappears,  but  now 
inverted  (Figure  XXIX,  c).  At  the  top  of 
page  58  we  find  the  main  theme  in  the  second 
violin  answered  canonically  by  the  viola, 
while  the  first  violin  sustains,  high  above,  the 
original  motive.  Finally,  after  the  themes 
have  met  all  manner  of  vicissitudes  and  wan- 
dered through  all  sorts  of  keys,  the  original 
motive  in  its  most  conclusive  form  brings  the 
final  cadence  in  E  major. 

IV 

A  last  illustration,  in  some  ways  the  most 
striking  of  all,  of  d'Indy's  conviction  that 
emotional  expressiveness  is  the  criterion  of  the 
value  of  all  artistic  processes,  is  afforded  by  his 
attitude  toward  the  peculiar  idiom  that  has 
been  developed  by  Debussy,  Ravel,  and  others, 

216 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


and  particularly  toward  the  system  of  har- 
mony based  on  the  "whole-tone  scale.*'  His 
standpoint  here  is  that  of  the  open-minded 
and  curious  artist  toward  processes  that  may 
have  new  possibilities,  saved  from  faddishness 
by  a  thorough  familiarity  with  traditional 
resources  and  an  indifference  to  novelty  for 
mere  novelty's  sake.  He  has  thus  won  the 
distinction  of  being  blamed  by  the  academic 
for  "queerness,"  harshness,  and  obscurity,  at 
the  same  time  that  he  is  patronized  as  reac- 
tionary by  the  "ultras." 

The  evidence  of  his  works  is  that  he  makes 
free  use  of  the  whole-tone  scale,  as  of  all  other 
technical  elements,  so  far  as  it  lends  itself 
to  the  expression  he  has  in  mind,  but  no 
farther.  There  are  already  traces  of  it  in 
certain  passages  of  the  early  Clarinet  Trio 
(1887)  where  he  wishes  to  give  a  sense  of 
groping  uncertainty.  In  "Fervaal"  (1895)  its 
peculiar  coloring  is  skilfully  used  in  a  number 
of  passages,  as,  for  example,  that  of  the  two 
bucklers,  and  its  vigor  and  brilliancy,  which 
so  commended  it  to  Moussorgsky  in  "Boris 
Godunoff,"  are  exploited  in  the  passage  before 

217 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 


the  apparition  of  the  cloud  figures  (see  Figure 
XXX,  a).  In  "Istar"  a  similar  use  is  made  of 
it  for  the  calls  which  announce  Istar's  arrival 
at  the  different  doors  ;  to  it  is  due  a  large  meas- 
ure of  the  mystical  expression  of  the  B  flat 
Symphony,  especially  of  the  opening  bass  mo- 
tive (Figure  XXX,  b)  founded  on  the  tritone 
which  used  to  be  regarded  as  "diabolus  in 
musica"  while  the  middle  section  of  the 
scherzo  draws  upon  its  power  of  suspending 
the  sense  and  piquing  the  musical  curiosity 
(Figure  XXX,  c) ;  in  the  opening  of  the  piano 

FIGURE  XXX. 
(a)  From  "  Fervaal." 

A         A        4        A,  .  *         A         A        •   * 


crescendo  molto 


218 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


(i)  Opening  of  B  flat  Symphony 
Extremement  lent 


sonata  splendid  use  is  made  of  its  clangorous 
sonorities. 

But  d'Indy  is  too  sound  an  artist  to  lend 
himself  to  the  abuse  of  any  process,  however 
fashionable,  and  he  has  the  good  sense  to 
recognize  the  dangers  of  the  whole-tone  scale. 
In  none  of  his  critical  writings  has  he  ex- 
pressed himself  more  courageously  and  at  the 
same  time  more  fairly,  than  in  an  article  on 
"Good  Sense"1  in  which  he  takes  up  this 
much-disputed  matter. 

"In  the  nineteenth  century,"  he  says,  "some 
Russian  composers,  in  the  interest  of  certain 

1  "Le  Bon  Sens,"  Revue  Musicale,  S.  I.  M.,  November,  1912. 
219 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

special  effects,  employed  the  scale  of  whole 
tones,  which  one  may  name  atonal  because 
it  suppresses  all  possibility  of  modulation. 
In  the  twentieth  century  Claude  Debussy  and 
Maurice  Ravel  elaborated  these  methods, 
making  often  very  ingenious  applications  of 
them ;  but  they  made  the  mistake  (one  must 
dare  to  speak  the  truth  of  those  one  esteems) 
of  erecting  processes  into  principles,  or  at  least 
of  letting  them  be  so  erected  by  their  muftis, 
so  that  the  formula  now  established  by  fashion 
is:  'Outside  of  harmonic  sensation  and  the 
titillation  of  orchestral  timbres  there  is  no 
salvation.' 

"This  formula  is  dangerous,  because  far  from 
constituting  an  advance  it  results  in  a  ret- 
rogression of  our  art,  and  leads  us  backward 
by  a  hundred  years.  What  these  prophets 
try  to  establish  is  the  rule  of  sense  to  the 
exclusion  of  sentiment,  it  is  the  supremacy  of 
sensation  over  the  equilibrium  of  the  heart 
and  the  intelligence.  This  sensualist  move- 
ment is  neither  new  nor  original.  About  a 
hundred  years  ago  a  similar  aberration  of 
good  sense  tried  to  poison  our  music.  At  the 

220 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


epoch  of  the  Rossinis  and  the  Donizettis  the 
sensualist  formula  was  'All  for  and  by  melody !' 
To-day  it  is  'All  for  and  by  harmony!'  I 
should  say  however  that,  of  the  two  maladies, 
the  second  is  less  grave,  for  nothing  is  more 
ephemeral  than  new  harmonies,  if  they  do  not 
take  their  point  of  departure  from  the  two 
other  elements  of  music :  melody  and  rhythm. 
...  In  order  that  harmony  should  be  du- 
rable, it  must  constitute,  not  mere  glistening 
surface,  mere  tapestry,  but  rather  the  cloth- 
ing of  the  living  and  acting  being  which  is 
the  rhythmed  melody.  The  costume,  in  this 
case,  may  safely  pass  out  of  style  —  the  human 
person,  if  it  is  well  constituted,  will  endure. 

"The  scale  of  whole  tones  is  far  from  being 
an  improvement  on  our  traditional  occidental 
scale,  since  it  suppresses  all  tonality  and  hence 
all  modulation.  Now,  change  of  tonal  place 
by  modulation  is  one  of  the  most  precious 
elements  of  expression.  To  deprive  oneself 
of  it  systematically  is  therefore  a  retrogression 
toward  the  barbaric  monotony  of  past  ages. 

"What,  then,  does  good  sense  demand? 
It  demands  very  simple  things  —  that  the  young 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

composer  should  begin  by  learning  his  art, 
and  should  not  allow  himself  to  be  hypnotized 
by  a  process  that  happens  to  be  in  fashion, 
employed  fruitfully,  to  be  sure,  by  certain 
natures,  but  not  constituting  in  itself  the  whole 
of  musical  art. 

"All  processes  are  good,  on  condition  that 
they  never  become  the  principal  end,  and  are 
regarded  only  as  means  to  make  MUSIC." 

The  candor,  courage,  and  penetration  of 
such  criticism  as  this,  shown,  though  seldom 
in  quite  such  measure,  in  every  critical  page 
that  d'Indy  has  written,  and  the  uncompromis- 
ing nature  of  his  views,  not  always  free  from 
narrowness,  have  of  course  made  him  many 
enemies.  Probably  no  man  in  modern  music 
is  better  loved  or  better  hated.  The  devotion 
of  his  whole  life  to  art,  with  a  modesty,  a  sup- 
pression of  self,  a  really  religious  enthusiasm 
rare  in  musicians,  has  naturally  turned  the 
love  of  his  pupils  and  disciples  into  something 
that  is  almost  worship ;  and  this  has  in  turn 
naturally  enough  irritated,  sometimes  to  ex- 
asperation, those  who  vent  their  disgust  of  ar- 
tistic idolatries  on  the  often  innocent  idol,  or 

222 


VINCENT    D'INDY 


who  feel  keenly,  in  a  hero,  the  limitations  of 
which  no  human  being  is  free,  or  who  find 
especially  antipathetic,  in  M.  d'Indy's  case, 
certain  temperamental  leanings  which  he  could 
not  overcome  if  he  would,  such  as  those  to 
conservatism,  aristocracy,  and  even  chauvinism 
in  social  relations,  and  to  the  strictest  Roman 
Catholicism  in  religion. 

Indeed,  regarded  simply  as  an  intellect, 
d'Indy  is  something  of  a  paradox,  moments 
of  the  most  penetrative  insight  alternating 
unaccountably  in  him  with  fits  of  prejudice  or 
narrowness  that  suggest  the  existence  upon 
his  mental  retina  of  incurable  blind  spots. 
What  could  be  more  illuminating  in  their  un- 
conventionality  than  such  judgments  as  these, 
for  example  :  —  Of  Schumann  :  "A  genius  in 
short  and  simple  works,  he  finds  himself  lost 
when  he  has  to  build  a  musical  monument. 
He  then  lets  himself  be  guided  by  sentiment 
alone,  and  in  spite  of  his  often  very  fine  ideas 
he  can  only  improvise  works  of  limited  range, 
hasty  fruits  of  an  art  not  sufficiently  con- 
scious." Of  Mendelssohn  :  —  "Always  skilful 
in  appropriating  the  knowledge  of  others, 

223 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

the  Jews  are  seldom  true  artists  by  nature." 
Of  Grieg:  "His  short  inspiration  and  his  abso- 
lute ignorance  of  composition  render  him  en- 
tirely inept  in  the  construction  of  symphonic 
works ;  he  produces  then  only  hybrid  assem- 
blages of  short  fragments,  unskilfully  welded 
together  or  simply  juxtaposed,  without  ap- 
pearance of  order  or  unity  either  in  conception 
or  in  execution." l  But  the  fastidiousness 
already  verging  here  on  the  finical  seems  al- 
ways to  be  in  danger,  in  dealing  with  subjects 
on  which  he  has  active  prejudices,  such  as 
Jews,  Protestants,  free  thinkers,  and  modern 
Germans,  of  overshooting  its  mark,  losing  the 
sense  of  proportion,  and  becoming  narrowly 
sectarian.  Someone  once  said  of  him  that 
he  had  the  spirit  of  the  mediaeval  religious 
fanatics,  and  had  he  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages 
would  have  been  burned  at  the  stake  for  his 
convictions,  or  would  have  burned  others,  as 
the  case  might  be,  with  equal  ardor. 

One  thus  catches  sometimes  a  note  of  intol- 
erance, almost  of  superstition,  even  in  some 
of  his  most  valid  judgments,  putting  one  a 

1  Cours,  Book  I,  Part  II,  pp.  406,  411,  419. 
224 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


little  on  guard,  perhaps  rather  by  what  is 
omitted  or  implied  than  by  what  is  actually 
said.  Thus  Bach  is  great,  "not  because  of, 
but  in  spite  of,  the  dogmatic  and  withering 
spirit  of  the  Reformation,"1  and  Franck's 
comment  on  Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure 
Reason,"  that  it  was  "tres  amusant"  is 
commended  as  one  of  the  finest  criticisms, 
"coming  from  the  mouth  of  the  believing 
French  musician,  that  could  be  made  of  the 
heavy  and  undigested  critique  of  the  Ger- 
man philosopher."2  Again  "The  present-day 
symphonists  of  Germany  seem  totally  inca- 
pable of  making  anything  great :  they  content 
themselves  with  making  it  big,  which  is  not 
quite  the  same  thing."  They  are  charged 
with  "total  absence  of  artistic  taste,  mis- 
understanding of  all  proportion  and  of  all 
tonal  order."3  They  are  "almost  devoid  of 
musical  taste;  they  cannot  distinguish  good 
music  from  bad ;  the  opinion  of  a  German  on 
a  musical  work  has  no  importance." 4  The 

1  Tribune  de  Saint-Gervais,  March,  1899. 

*  "Life  of  Franck,"  French  edition,  page  40. 

*  Cours,  Book  II,  Part  I,  487. 

4  Revue  Musicde,  December  i,  1906,  quoted. 
Q  22S 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

sympathy  of  the  judicial  with  these  pro- 
nouncements wanes  as  they  increase  in  ani- 
mus ;  the  justice  of  the  first,  to  which  any 
thoughtful  musician  could  hardly  take  ex- 
ception, is  obscured  by  the  evident  exaggera- 
tion of  the  last;  and  musical  criticism  too 
evidently  loses  itself  in  chauvinism. 

We  need  not  concern  ourselves  here  to  esti- 
mate the  exact  proportion  between  wisdom 
and  prejudice  in  d'Indy's  writings ;  the  mate- 
rials for  a  judgment  have  been  admirably  set 
forth  in  Holland's  essay,  and  each  reader 
may  judge  for  himself.  The  aim  of  these 
citations  is  rather  to  illustrate  the  tempera- 
ment of  their  author,  and  to  show  that  in  the 
last  analysis,  even  though  these  writings 
make  up  perhaps  the  finest  body  of  musical 
criticism  produced  by  a  creative  musician 
since  Schumann,  that  temperament  is  after  all 
originative  rather  than  judicial.  Much  light 
as  there  is  in  it,  there  is  even  more  heat. 
D'Indy  is  a  crusader  of  beauty ;  the  shining 
spear  is  his  natural  weapon ;  and  when  he  takes 
to  the  clerk's  ink-horn  and  balance  sheet  it  is 
always  with  a  sort  of  youthful  impatience. 

226 


VINCENT     D'INDY 


He  is  essentially  a  poet,  a  maker;  it  is  in  his 
music  that  he  finds  his  truest  self.  Indeed,  he 
is  too  many-sided  to  be  quite  justly  appre- 
ciated by  his  contemporaries ;  the  poet  has 
too  much  disappeared  for  us  behind  the 
teacher,  the  scholar,  the  critic,  the  philoso- 
pher, the  devotee.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
revival  of  "Fervaal"  in  1913,  M.  Vuiller- 
moz  published  an  imaginary  talk  of  this  com- 
posite d'Indy  to  his  adoring  pupils,  asking 
them  not  to  idealize  him,  to  let  him  remain 
human,  to  see  in  him  the  simple  human  lover, 
like  his  Fervaal,  which  he  felt  himself  to  be. 
It  is  time,  for  our  own  sakes,  that  we  paid 
more  attention  than  we  do  to  this  human 
lover  that  finds  supreme  expression  in  the 
Symphony  in  B  flat,  in  "Istar,"  in  the  E 
major  Quartet,  in  the  "Jour  d'fite  a  la  Mon- 
tagne."  He  it  is  who  speaks  to  the  young 
men,  to  his  fellow  lovers  of  immortal  beauty, 
to  the  future.  For,  as  one  of  his  most  under- 
standing critics,  Louis  Laloy,  has  written  of 
him:  "Emotion  is  queen,  and  science  is  her 
servant."  If  d'Indy  has  studied  as  few  mod- 
ern musicians  have  studied,  if  he  has  drawn 

227 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

on  the  past  for  his  ample  means,  it  has  been 
only  in  order  to  take  more  beauty  with  him, 
and  to  enable  us  to  take  it,  into  the  future; 
and  for  all  his  intellectual  power  he  has  never 
forgotten  that  "Only  the  heart  can  engender 
beauty." 


228 


VI 
MUSIC  IN  AMERICA 


VI 
MUSIC  IN  AMERICA 


I 


I 

N  the  discussions  of  "American 
music"  that  go  on  perennially  in 
our  newspapers  and  journals,  now 
waxing  in  a  wave  of  patriotic  en- 
thusiasm, now  waning  as  popular 
attention  is  turned  to  something  else,  in  war 
time  much  stimulated  by  an  enhanced  con- 
sciousness of  nationality  (unless  indeed  they 
are  totally  elbowed  aside  to  make  room  for 
more  immediate  subjects),  a  sharp  cleavage 
will  usually  be  observed  between  those  whose 
interest  is  primarily  in  the  music  for  itself, 
wherever  it  comes  from,  and  those  in  whom 
artistic  considerations  give  way  before  patri- 
otic ardor,  and  propaganda  usurp  the  place 
of  discrimination.  One  group,  in  uttering 
the  challenging  phrase,  "American  music," 
places  the  stress  instinctively  on  the  noun 
and  regards  the  adjective  as  only  qualification; 

231 


CONTEMPORARY     COMPOSERS 

the  other,  in  its  preoccupation  with  "Amer- 
ican," seems  to  take  "music"  rather  for 
granted.  Unfortunately  the  former  group 
constitutes  so  small  a  minority,  and  expresses 
itself  so  soberly,  that  its  wholesome  insistence 
on  the  quality  of  the  article  itself  is  likely  to  be 
quite  drowned  out  by  the  bawling  of  the 
advertisers,  with  their  insistent  slogan  "Made 
in  America."  All  the  advantages  of  numbers, 
organization,  and  easy  appeal  to  the  man  in 
the  street  are  theirs.  Even  if  we  ignore  those 
venal  music  journals  which  make  a  system  of 
exploiting  the  patriotism  of  the  undiscriminat- 
ing  for  purely  pecuniary  purposes,  there  remain 
enough  enthusiasts  and  propagandists,  indis- 
posed or  unable  to  appraise  quality  for  them- 
selves, to  create  by  their  "booming"  methods  a 
formidable  confusion  in  our  standards  of  taste. 
Inasmuch,  therefore,  as  we  are  condemned,  for 
our  sins,  to  be  not  only  producers  but  con- 
sumers of  this  "American  music,"  it  behooves 
us  to  make  careful  inspection  of  the  claims  for 
it  so  extravagantly  put  forth,  and  to  assure 
ourselves  that  we  are  getting  something  besides 
labels  for  our  money. 

232 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


What,  then,  is  the  precise  value  we  ought 
justly  to  ascribe  to  that  word  "American" 
as  applied  to  music,  and  wherein  have  those 
we  may  call  champions  of  the  adjective  been 
inclined  to  exaggerate  it  ?  If  we  analyze  their 
attitude,  we  shall  find  them  the  prey  of  two 
fallacies  which  constantly  falsify  their  con- 
clusions, and  make  them  dangerous  guides 
for  those  who  have  at  heart  the  real  interests 
of  music  in  America.  The  first  of  these  falla- 
cies is  that  which  confuses  quantity  with 
quality,  and  supposes  that  artistic  excellence 
can  be  decided  by  vote  of  the  majority.  The 
second  is  that  which  identifies  racial  character 
with  local  idioms  and  tricks  of  speech  rather 
than  with  a  certain  emotional  and  spiritual 
temper.  Both  lead  straight  to  the  oft-repeated 
conclusion  that  "ragtime"  is  the  necessary 
basis  of  our  native  musical  art. 

Listen,  for  example,  to  one  of  the  most  per- 
sistent, courageous,  and  often  interesting 
advocates  of  ragtime,  Mr.  H.  K.  Moderwell. 
"I  can't  help  feeling,"  says  Mr.  Moderwell,1 
"  that  a  person  who  doesn't  open  his  heart 

1  The  New  Republic,  October  16,  1915. 
233 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

to  ragtime  somehow  isn't  human.  Nine  out 
of  ten  musicians,  if  caught  unawares,  will 
like  this  music  until  they  remember  that 
they  shouldn't.  What  does  this  mean  ?  Does 
it  mean  that  ragtime  is  'all  very  well  in  its 
place'?  Rather  that  these  musicians  don't 
consider  that  place  theirs.  But  that  place, 
remember,  is  in  the  affections  of  some  10,000,000 
or  more  Americans.  Conservative  estimates 
show  that  there  are  at  least  50,000,000  copies 
of  popular  music  sold  in  this  country  yearly 
and  a  goodly  portion  of  it  is  in  ragtime.  .  .  . 
You  may  take  it  as  certain  that  if  many  mil- 
lions of  people  persist  in  liking  something  that 
has  not  been  recognized  by  the  schools,  there 
is  vitality  in  that  thing."  No  doubt  there  is, 
just  as  by  the  same  argument  there  is  vitality 
in  chewing  gum  and  the  comic  supplements. 
The  question  is,  of  course,  what  sort  of  vitality  ? 
Yet  if  you  raise  this  question  of  quality,  you 
are  immediately  charged  with  being  a  "high- 
brow," "a  person,"  in  Professor  Brander 
Matthews's  already  classic  definition,  "edu- 
cated beyond  his  intelligence,"  —  a  charge 
from  which  any  sane  man  naturally  shrinks. 

234 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


"The  best  American  music  is  that  which  the 
greatest  number  of  Americans  like ;  the  greatest 
number  of  Americans  like  ragtime;  therefore 
ragtime  is  the  best  American  music."  This 
is  a  specious  syllogism,  which  you  may  oppose 
only  at  the  risk  of  being  thought  a  highbrow 
and  a  snob. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  that  you  really  do  not 
happen  to  care  for  chewing  gum,  that  just  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  of  personal  taste,  and  not 
through  any  principles  or  sense  of  superiority 
to  your  fellows  you  prefer  other  forms  of 
nutriment  or  exercise.  You  confess  this  pe- 
culiarity. Can  you  not  hear  the  reproachful 
reply  ?  "  I  can't  help  feeling  that  a  person 
who  doesn't  open  his  heart  to  chewing  gum 
somehow  isn't  human.  Nine  out  of  ten 
travelers  on  the  subway,  if  caught  unawares 
[with  gum  disguised  as  bonbons,  let  us  say] 
will  like  it  until  they  remember  that  they 
shouldn't.  What  does  this  mean  ?  Does  it 
mean  that  chewing  gum  is  'all  very  well  in 
its  place'?  Rather  that  these  punctilious 
people  don't  consider  that  place  theirs.  But 
that  place,  remember,  is  in  the  affections  of 

235 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

some  10,000,000  or  more  Americans.  The 
annual  output  of  the  chief  chewing  gum  manu- 
facturers"—  etc.,  etc.  Thus  are  you  voted 
down  if  you  happen  to  be  in  the  minority. 
It  does  you  no  good  to  protest  that  you  are 
really  quite  sincere  and  without  desire  to 
epater  le  bourgeois;  that  you  can't  help  pre- 
ferring Mr.  Howells's  novels  to  Mr.  Robert 
W.  Chambers's,  Mr.  Ben  Foster's  landscapes 
to  Mr.  Christy's  magazine  girls,  Mr.  Irwin's 
"Nautical  Lays  of  a  Landsman"  to  the  comic 
supplements,  and  MacDowell's  "To  a  Wild 
Rose"  to  "Everybody's  Doing  It."  If  you 
stray  from  the  herd  you  must  be  sick.  If  you 
vote  for  the  losers  you  must  be  a  snob. 

Such  charges  are  the  more  dangerous  in 
that  they  sometimes  contain  a  half-truth. 
There  is  a  kind  of  person,  the  simon-pure  snob, 
who  casts  his  vote  for  the  loser  just  because  he 
is  a  loser,  because  he  is  unpopular,  who  prides 
himself  on  his  "exclusiveness,"  "excluding 
himself,"  as  Thoreau  penetratively  says, 
"from  all  that  is  worth  while."  His  is  a  sort 
of  inverted  numericalism,  based  on  quantity 
just  as  essentially  as  the  crude  gospel  of  the 

236 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


"10,000,000  or  more  Americans,"  but  on  quan- 
tity negative  and  vanishing  towards  the  zero 
of  perfect  distinction.  It  is  from  his  kind 
that  are  recruited  the  faddists,  those  who 
"dote  on  Debussy,"  the  devotees  of  folk- 
songs not  for  their  human  beauty  but  as  curi- 
ous specimens,  those  who  invent  all  sorts  of 
queer  connections  between  music  and  paint- 
ing or  poetry,  and  indeed  seem  to  find  in  it 
anything  and  everything  but  simple  human 
feeling.  It  is  not  from  these  that  we  shall 
get  any  help  towards  the  truth  about  ragtime. 
Indeed,  they  seem  because  of  their  unsym- 
pathetic attitude  toward  the  spirit  of  music  — 
its  emotional  expression  —  and  their  preoccu- 
pation with  the  letter  of  it,  to  be  especially 
susceptible  to  the  second  fallacy  of  which  we 
spoke  —  that  of  identifying  racial  quality  with 
mere  idiom  rather  than  with  fundamental 
temper. 

Mr.  Moderwell  shall  be  spokesman  of  this 
view  also.  "You  can't  tell  an  American  com- 
poser's 'art-song,'"  he  says,  "from  any  medi- 
ocre art-song  the  world  over.  .  .  .  You  can 
distinguish  American  ragtime  from  the  popu- 

237 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

lar  music  of  any  nation  and  any  age."  Let 
us  agree  heartily  that  the  mediocre  "art- 
song"  (horrid  name  for  a  desolating  thing) 
is  probably  no  better  and  no  worse  in  our  own 
than  in  other  countries.  Does  this  not  seem 
an  insufficient  warrant  for  the  excellence  of 
types  of  art  that  can  be  more  easily  told 
apart  ?  For  purposes  of  labeling  specimens 
earmarks  are  an  advantage,  but  hardly  for 
appraising  modes  of  expression.  If  the  im- 
portant matter  in  American  music  is  not  its 
expression  of  the  American  temper,  but  the 
peculiar  technical  feature,  the  special  kind  of 
syncopation  we  call  the  "rag  rhythm,"  then 
the  important  matter  in  Hungarian  music  is 
not  its  fire  but  its  "sharp  fourth  step."  Bee- 
thoven ceases  to  be  Teutonic  when  he  uses 
Irish  cadences  in  his  Seventh  Symphony, 
and  Chopin  is  Polish  only  in  his  mazurkas  and 
polonaises.  Of  course  this  will  not  do;  and 
Mr.  Moderwell,  to  do  him  justice,  after  re- 
marking that  "ragtime  is  not  merely  synco- 
pation —  it  is  a  certain  sort  of  syncopa- 
tion," adds  "But  of  course  this  definition  is 
not  enough.  Ragtime  has  its  flavor  that  no 

238 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


definition  can  imprison."  Our  ultimate  ques- 
tion is,  then,  not  how  many  people  like  rag- 
time, or  how  few  like  it,  or  how  easily  can 
its  idiom  be  told  from  other  idioms,  but  how 
expressive  is  it  of  the  American  temper,  how 
full  an  artistic  utterance  can  it  give  of  the  best 
and  widest  American  natures  ?  This  is  a  ques- 
tion not  of  quantity  but  of  quality :  of  the 
quality  of  ragtime,  the  quality  of  America, 
and  the  adequacy  of  the  one  to  the  other. 

II 

Suppose,  bearing  in  mind  Mr.  Moderwell's 
warning  against  snobbery,  that  "A  Russian 
folk-song  was  no  less  scorned  in  the  court  of 
Catherine  the  Great  than  a  ragtime  song  in 
our  music  studios  to-day,"  we  examine  in 
some  detail  a  typical  example  of  ragtime  such 
as  "The  Memphis  Blues,"  of  which  he  as- 
sures us  that  "In  sheer  melodic  beauty,  in  the 
vividness  of  its  characterization,  in  the  deft- 
ness of  its  polyphony  and  structure,  this 
song  deserves  to  rank  among  the  best  of  our 
time."  l  Here  are  the  opening  strains  of  it. 

1  "Two  Views  of  Ragtime."     The  Seven  Arts,  July,  1917. 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 


FIGURE  XXXI. 
From  "The  Memphis  Blues." 


Slowly 


Polk s,  I've  just  been  down, 
Oh,  that  rael  -  o  -  dy, 


down  to   Mem-phis  town, 
sure   ap-pealed  to    me, 


r  iiliiiii 

That's  where  the  peo-ple  smile, 
Just  like    a  mountain  stream 


smile  on  you  all  the  while 
rip  -pi  -ing  on     it  seemed 


Approaching  them  with  the  eager  expectation 
that  such  praise  naturally  arouses,  can  we,  as 
candid  lovers  of  music,  find  anything  but 
bitter  disappointment  in  their  trivial,  poverty- 
stricken,  threadbare  conventionality  ?  How 
many  thousand  times  have  we  heard  that 
speciously  cajoling  descent  of  the  first  three 
notes,  that  originally  piquant  but  now  inde- 
scribably boresome  oscillation  from  the  tonic 
chord  in  the  third  measure  ?  These  are  the 
common  snippets  and  tag-ends  of  harmony, 
240 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


kicked  about  the  very  gutters,  ground  out 
by  every  hurdy-gurdy,  familiarity  with  which 
breeds  not  affection  but  contempt.  Their 
very  surface  cleverness,  as  of  meaningless 
ornament,  is  a  part  of  their  offense.  Rus- 
sian folk-song  indeed !  Compare  them  with 
the  simple  but  noble  tonic,  dominant  and 
sub-dominant,  of  the  "Volga  Boat  Song"  and 
their  shoddiness  stands  self-revealed.  And 
the  melody  ?  Bits  and  snippets  again,  quite 
without  character  if  it  were  not  for  the  rhythm, 
and  acquiring  no  momentum  save  in  the  lines 
"I  went  out  a-dancin',"  etc.,  where  they  build 
up  well,  but  to  a  complete  anticlimax  in  the 
return  of  the  obvious  opening  strain. 

As  for  the  rag  rhythm  itself,  the  sole  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  this  music,  it  has  un- 
doubtedly something  of  real  piquancy.  The 
trick,  it  will  be  noted,  is  a  syncopation  of  half- 
beats,  arranged  so  as  to  pull  bodily  forward 
certain  comparatively  strong  accents,  those 
at  the  middle  of  the  measures  l  —  a  scheme  to 
which  words  as  well  as  melody  conform.  The 
left  hand  meanwhile  gives  the  regular  metrical 

1  The  time  is  really  4-8,  though  marked  2-4. 
R  241 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

division  of  the  measure,  and  a  writer  in  the 
London  Times,  defining  ragtime  as  "a  strongly 
syncopated  melody  superimposed  on  a  strictly 
regular  accompaniment,"  points  out  that  "it 
is  the  combination  of  these  two  rhythms 
that  gives  'ragtime'  its  character."1  This 
is  perhaps  not  strictly  true,  since  in  some 
of  the  most  effective  bits  of  ragtime  the 
metrical  pulsation  may  give  way  momen- 
tarily to  the  syncopation,  and  everyone  re- 
members those  delightful  times  of  complete 
silence  in  which  the  pulse  is  kept  going  men- 
tally, to  be  finally  confirmed  by  a  crashing 
cadence.  But  it  is  usually  the  case  that  both 
time  schemes,  metrical  and  rhythmical,  are 
maintained  together.  For  this  very  reason 
we  must  question  the  contention  of  the  cham- 
pions of  ragtime  that  its  type  of  syncopation 
is  capable  of  great  variety,  a  contention  in 
support  of  which  some  of  them  have  even 
challenged  comparison  of  it  with  the  rhythmic 
vigors  of  Beethoven  and  Schumann.2 

1The  Times,  London,  February  8,  1913,  quoted  in  Boston 
Symphony  Orchestra  Program  Books,  vol.  32,  p.  1186. 

1  See,  for  instance,  Mr.  Carl  van  Vechten's  "  Interpreters  and 
Interpretations." 

242 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


The  subtlety  of  syncopation  as  an  artistic 
device  results  from  its  simultaneous  mainte- 
nance of  two  time-patterns,  the  rhythmic 
and  the  metrical,  in  such  a  relation  that  the 
second  and  subordinate  one,  though  never 
lost  sight  of,  is  never  obtruded.  The  quasi- 
mechanical  pulse  of  the  meter  is  the  indispen- 
sable background  against  which  only  can  the 
freer  oscillations  of  the  rhythm  outline  them- 
selves. The  moment  the  sense  of  it  is  lost, 
as  it  is  sometimes  lost  in  those  over-bold 
passages  of  Schumann  where  a  displacement 
is  too  emphatically  made  or  too  long  con- 
tinued, the  charm  disappears.  In  the  fol- 
lowing from  his  "Faschingsschwank,"  for  in- 
stance, the  interest  of  the  rhythmic  accent  on 
beat  "three"  lasts  only  so  long  as  we  oppose  to 
it  mentally  a  regular  metric  accent  on  "one." 

FIGURE  XXXII. 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

In  the  continuation  of  the  passage,  for 
which  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  original, 
our  minds  are  apt  to  "slip  a  stitch,"  so  to 
speak,  letting  "three"  and  "one"  coalesce. 
The  moment  this  happens  the  passage  be- 
comes commonplace.  But  suppose,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  the  effort  to  maintain  our  sense 
of  the  meter,  we  strike  the  bass  notes  on  each 
"one."  Now  equally,  or  indeed  more  than 
before,  the  charm  is  fled,  and  the  passage 
rendered  stale  and  unprofitable,  through  the 
actual  presentation  to  the  ear  of  so  mechan- 
ical a  reiteration.  In  short,  the  metrical 
scheme  has  to  be  mentally  maintained,  but 
actually,  so  far  as  possible,  eliminated.  Look- 
ing back,  in  the  light  of  these  considerations, 
at  "The  Memphis  Blues,"  we  shall  realize 
that  whatever  the  pleasing  eccentricity  of  the 
rhythm,  so  relentless  a  meter  as  we  here  find 
thumped  out  by  the  left  hand  cannot  but 
quickly  grow  tiresome,  as  indeed  it  will  be  felt 
to  be  after  a  few  repetitions. 

Reference  to  another  well-known  theme 
of  Schumann  will  reveal  a  further  weak- 
ness of  ragtime.  The  second  theme  of  the 

244 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


finale  of  his  Concerto  for  piano  runs  as   fol- 
lows : 

FIGURE  XXXIII. 


* 


<T^r 


±0ta± 


i 


etc. 


eE*E$ 


p 


Here  the  indescribably  delightful  effect  is  evi- 
dently due  not  only  to  the  purely  rhythmic 
syncopation,  but  also  to  the  fact  that  on  the 
silent  strong  beat  of  every  second  measure 
harmony  and  melody  as  well  as  rhythm  are  so 
to  speak  "tied  up,"  or  suspended,  in  such  a 
way  that  the  syncopation  is  at  the  very  heart 
of  the  whole  musical  conception,  and  cannot 
be  omitted  without  annihilating  the  music. 
Beside  such  essential  syncopation  as  this  the 
mere  pulling  forward  of  certain  notes,  as  in 
"The  Memphis  Blues,"  is  seen  to  be  super- 
ficial, an  arbitrary  dislocation  which  may 

245 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

disguise  but  cannot  correct  the  triteness  of 
the  real  melodic  line.  In  fact,  we  seem  here 
to  have  tracked  ragtime  to  its  lair  and  dis- 
covered what  it  really  is.  It  is  no  creative 
process,  like  the  syncopation  of  the  masters, 
by  which  are  struck  forth  new,  vigorous, 
and  self-sufficing  forms.  It  is  a  rule  of  thumb 
for  putting  a  "kink"  into  a  tune  that  without 
such  specious  rehabilitation  would  be  un- 
bearable. It  is  not  a  new  flavor,  but  a  kind 
of  curry  or  catsup  strong  enough  to  make  the 
stale  old  dishes  palatable  to  unfastidious  ap- 
petites. Significant  is  it  that,  as  the  writer 
in  the  Times  remarks,  "In  American  slang  to 
'rag'  a  melody  is  to  syncopate  a  normally 
regular  time."  The  "rag"  idiom  can  thus  be 
put  on  and  off  like  a  mask ;  and  in  recent  years 
we  have  seen  thus  grotesquely  disguised,  as 
the  Mendelssohn  Wedding  March,  for  instance, 
in  "No  Wedding  Bells  for  Me,"  many  familiar 
melodies.  To  these  it  can  give  no  new  musical 
lineaments,  but  only  distort  the  old  ones  as 
with  St.  Vitus'  dance. 

Thus   the   technical   limitations   of   ragtime 
which  we  have  tried  to  analyze  are  seen  to  be 

246 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


in  the  last  analysis  the  results  and  indices  of  a 
more  fundamental  shortcoming  —  an  emotional 
superficiality  and  triviality  peculiar  to  it. 
Ragtime  is  the  musical  expression  of  an  at- 
titude toward  life  only  too  familiar  to  us  all, 
an  attitude  shallow,  restless,  avid  of  excite- 
ment, incapable  of  sustained  attention,  skim- 
ming the  surface  of  everything,  finding  nowhere 
satisfaction,  realization,  or  repose.  It  is  a 
meaningless  stir-about,  a  commotion  with- 
out purpose,  an  epilepsy  simulating  controlled 
muscular  action.  It  is  the  musical  counter- 
part of  the  sterile  cleverness  we  find  in  so 
much  of  our  contemporary  conversation,  as 
well  as  in  our  theater  and  our  books.  No 
candid  observer  could  deny  the  prominence  in 
our  American  life  of  this  restlessness  of  which 
ragtime  is  one  expression.  It  is  undoubtedly 
what  most  strikes  superficial  observation.  The 
question  is  whether  it  is  really  representative 
of  the  American  temper  as  a  whole,  or  is 
prominent  only  as  the  froth  is  prominent 
on  a  glass  of  beer.  Mr.  Moderwell  thinks 
the  former:  "I  like  to  think,"  he  says,  "that 
ragtime  is  the  perfect  expression  of  the  Ameri- 

247 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

can  city,  with  its  restless  bustle  and  motion, 
its  multitude  of  unrelated  details,  and  its 
underlying  rhythmic  progress  toward  a  vague 
somewhere."  "As  you  walk  up  and  down  the 
streets  of  an  American  city  you  feel  in  its 
jerk  and  rattle  a  personality  different  from  that 
of  any  European  capital.  .  .  .  This  is  Ameri- 
can. Ragtime,  I  believe,  expresses  it.  It  is 
to-day  the  one  true  American  music." 

To  such  an  idolatry  of  precisely  the  most 
hideous,  inhuman,  and  disheartening  features 
in  our  national  and  musical  life  a  lover  of 
music  and  a  lover  of  America  can  only  reply 
that,  first,  it  is  possible  that  America  lies  less 
on  the  surface  than  we  think,  possible  that  it 
is  no  more  adequately  represented  by  Broad- 
way than  France  is  represented  by  the  Pari- 
sian boulevards,  or  England  by  the  London 
music  halls ;  but  that,  second,  if  indeed  the 
land  of  Lincoln  and  of  Emerson  has  degen- 
erated until  nothing  remains  of  it  but  "jerk 
and  rattle,"  then  we  at  least  are  free  to  re- 
pudiate the  false  patriotism  of  "My  country, 
right  or  wrong,"  to  insist  that  better  than 
bad  music  is  no  music,  and  to  let  our  beloved 

248 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


art  subside  finally  under  the  clangor  of  subway 
gongs  and  automobile  horns,  dead  but  not 
dishonored. 

Ill 

That  type  of  musical  aesthetic  which  insists 
much  on  the  importance  of  the  racial  and 
national  differences  dividing  human  kind  into 
groups,  and  of  the  special  features,  technical 
and  expressive,  characterizing  the  music  of 
these  various  groups,  is  constantly  challeng- 
ing our  American  music  to  disavow  what  it 
calls  a  featureless  cosmopolitanism,  and  to 
achieve  individuality  by  idealizing  some  primi- 
tive popular  strain,  whether  of  the  Indians,  of 
the  negroes,  of  the  British  colonizers,  or  of 
our  contemporary  "ragtime."  In  so  doing  it 
usually  accepts  uncritically  certain  assump- 
tions. It  is  apt  to  assume,  for  instance,  that 
interpretative  truth  is  assured  by  geographical 
propinquity.  The  chant  of  the  Indian  "ex- 
presses" the  modern  American  because  the 
habitat  of  both  is  west  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
It  often  assumes  that  characteristic  turns  of 
idiom,  such  as  certain  modal  intervals  or 

249 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

rhythmic  figures,  are  of  intrinsic  value  as  mak- 
ing music  "distinctive."  You  can  make  a 
tune  "American"  by  "ragging"  its  rhythm, 
as  you  make  a  story  American  by  inserting 
"I  guess"  or  "I  reckon"  at  frequent  intervals. 
It  often  mistakes  the  conception  of  the  average 
for  that  of  the  ideal  type,  and  supposes  that 
the  man  in  the  street  represents  the  best  taste 
of  America.  Above  all,  it  condemns  any 
attempt  at  universalizing  artistic  utterance  as 
"featureless  cosmopolitanism"  or  "flabby  eclec- 
ticism," and  suggests  that  the  musician  who 
speaks,  not  a  dialect  but  a  language  understood 
over  the  civilized  world  (as  Tschaikowsky  did, 
for  example,  to  the  disgust  of  the  Russian 
nationalists),  has  "lost  contact,"  as  the  phrase 
goes,  "with  the  soil."  In  the  interest  of  clear 
thinking  all  these  assumptions  stand  in  need  of 
criticism. 

It  is  hardly  possible  even  to  state  the  first 
without  recognizing  the  large  measure  of  ab- 
surdity it  contains.  That  the  crude  war- 
dances  and  chants  of  the  red  aborigines  of  this 
continent  should  be  in  any  way  representative 
of  so  mixed  a  people,  compounded  of  so  many 

250 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


European  strains,  as  we  who  have  exterminated 
and  displaced  them,  is  a  thought  more  worthy 
of  savages  who  believe  that  the  strength  of 
their  enemy  passes  into  them  when  they  eat 
him  than  of  our  vaunted  intelligence,  fortified 
by  ethnological  science.  We  should  hardly 
entertain  it  if  we  were  not  misled  by  the  interest 
that  attaches  to  anything  unusual  or  outlandish, 
and  tempted  by  certain  idiomatic  peculiarities 
of  these  monotonous  strains  to  exploit  their 
"local  color."  This  may  very  well  be  done 
now  and  then  for  an  artistic  holiday,  as  Mac- 
Dowell  has  done  it  in  his  Indian  Suite;  but 
if  a  folk-music  is  to  enter  vitally  into  art  it 
must  bring  with  it  something  more  than 
quaintness  or  distinctive  idioms,  it  must  be 
genuinely  expressive  of  the  temperament  of 
the  people  using  it ;  and  of  the  complex  Ameri- 
can temper  Indian  music  can  never  be  thus 
representative. 

Somewhat  similar  considerations  apply  to 
the  British  folk-songs  which,  introduced  by 
our  pioneering  grandfathers,  have  in  remote 
regions  like  the  Kentucky  mountains  survived 
uncontaminated  by  modernisms,  and  have  re- 

251 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

cently  been  rediscovered  and  widely  acclaimed. 
Here  again  the  piquancy  of  unfamiliar  idiom 
and  a  simplicity  that  falls  agreeably  on  over- 
stimulated  ears  has  aroused  an  enthusiasm  that 
overshoots  its  mark.  By  all  means  let  us  enjoy 
these  fresh  songs,  and  even  embody  them  in  our 
music  if  we  find  it  an  interesting  experiment. 
But  can  we  expect  that  they  will  have  any  far- 
reaching  interpretative  value  for  us,  that  they 
will  express  our  national  temper  ?  That  they 
are  not  even  native  to  the  soil  is  a  minor  ob- 
jection to  them,  for  we  are  importations  our- 
selves. But  that  they  are,  with  all  their  charm, 
British  through  and  through,  makes  it  unlikely 
that  they  can  adequately  reflect  a  nation 
which,  though  partly  British,  is  also  partly 
almost  everything  else. 

The  case  of  ragtime  is  rather  more  subtle. 
Here  is  a  music,  local  and  piquantly  idiomatic, 
and  undeniably  representative  of  a  certain 
aspect  of  American  character  —  our  restless- 
ness, our  insatiable  nervous  activity,  our 
thoughtless  superficial  "optimism,"  our  fond- 
ness for  "hustling,"  our  carelessness  of  whither, 
how,  or  why  we  are  moving  if  only  we  can 

252 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


"keep  oh  the  move."  If  this  were  all  of  us, 
if  the  first  impression  which  foreigners  get  of 
us,  summed  up  for  them  oftentimes  in  our 
inimitably  characteristic  "Step  lively,  please," 
were  also  the  last,  and  there  was  nothing  more 
solid,  sweet,  or  wise  in  America  than  this  gal- 
vanic twitching,  then  indeed  ragtime  would 
be  our  perfect  music.  But  every  true  American 
knows  that,  on  the  contrary,  this  is  not  our 
virtue  but  our  vice,  not  our  strength  but  our 
weakness,  and  that  such  a  picture  of  us  as  it 
presents  is  not  a  portrait  but  a  caricature. 
And  similarly,  as  soon  as  we  examine  ragtime  at 
all  critically  we  discover  its  essential  triviality. 
Its  melodies  are  commonplace,  its  harmonies 
cheap,  shoddy,  and  sentimental.  Even  its 
rhythm,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  clever  formula 
rather  than  a  creative  form,  a  trick  for  giving 
ordinary  movement  a  specious  air  of  anima- 
tion. It  is,  in  fact,  as  the  writer  in  the  London 
Times  points  out,  "a  debased  imitation  of 
genuine  negro  song,  just  as  the  popular  Gaiety 
favorites  of  the  late  eighties,  'Enniscorthy* 
and  'Ballyhooley,'  were  debased  imitations 
of  a  certain  class  of  Irish  folk-song."  A  few 

253 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

lines  later  this  same  writer  falls  into  the  pit- 
fall always  yawning  for  the  theorist  about  rag- 
time, asks  if  the  American  composer  will  arrive 
who  can  extract  gold  from  this  ore,  states 
coolly  that  "Ragtime  represents  the  American 
nation,"  and  of  course  ends  up  with  an  edify- 
ing reference  to  an  art  "really  vital  because  it 
has  its  roots  in  its  own  soil."  Does  he  con- 
sider that  "Ballyhooley"  "represents  the  Irish 
nation"?  Would  he  advise  Sir  Charles  Stan- 
ford to  write  a  symphony  upon  it  ?  Only  an 
American  journalist  could  be  more  nai've,  and 
here  is  one  that  is.  "The  important  point," 
he  says,  "is  that  ragtime,  whether  it  be  ad- 
judged good  or  bad,  is  original  with  Americans 
—  it  is  their  own  creation."  l  This  beggars 

comment. 

IV 

So  far  our  results  are  mainly  negative.  We 
have  discovered  fallacies  in  several  assump- 
tions too  commonly  and  easily  made.  We 
have  set  a  lower  estimate  on  purely  geograph- 
ical considerations  than  is  often  set.  We  have 

1  Quoted  by  Mr.  Charles  L.  Buchanan  in  an  admirably  sane 
article  on  "Rag  Time  and  American  Music"  in  The  Opera  Maga- 
zine, February,  1916. 

254 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


tried  to  distinguish  between  what  in  a  popular 
strain  is  merely  quaint  or  piquant  because  of 
peculiarities  of  idiom,  and  what  is  more  pro- 
foundly true  in  expression  to  a  national  or 
racial  temper ;  and  while  admitting  the  super- 
ficial charm  of  such  idioms  and  of  the  "  dis- 
tinctiveness"  to  which  they  minister,  we  have 
insisted  on  the  far  deeper  import  of  inter- 
pretative truth.  We  have  glanced  at  the 
danger  of  confounding  appeal  to  the  majority 
with  appeal  to  good  taste,  which  is  always 
outvoted,  or  of  supposing  that  "originality" 
is  of  any  importance  in  comparison  with  merit. 
From  these  criticisms  certain  positive  prin- 
ciples thus  tend  to  emerge.  It  becomes  evident 
that  there  is  a  certain  gradation  of  values  in 
the  qualities  which  a  folk-music  may  possess. 
Distinctiveness  of  idiom  is  a  merit,  but  a  less 
vital  one  than  interpretative  power;  higher 
than  either  is  beauty,  suitability  to  enter  into 
music  that  may  bear  comparison  with  the 
best  music  of  the  world.  Is  there  any  body 
of  folk-song  available  to  Americans  that  pos- 
sesses any  or  all  of  these  merits  in  a  higher 
degree  than  the  types  we  have  examined  ? 

255 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

We  seem  to  discover  such  a  richer  vein  in 
the  songs  of  the  negroes  —  not  the  debased 
forms  found  in  ragtime  and  the  "coon-songs" 
of  the  minstrel  shows,  but  the  genuine  old 
plantation  tunes,  the  "spirituals"  and  "shouts" 
of  the  slaves.  In  idiomatic  individuality,  to 
begin  with,  both  of  harmonic  interval  and 
rhythmic  figure,  these  songs  will  compare 
favorably  with  those  of  any  European  nation. 
With  many  of  these  they  share,  indeed,  odd 
modal  intervals  of  great  antiquity,  such  as  the 
lowered  seventh  scale-step  in  major  and  the 
raised  sixth-step  in  minor.  Like  Scottish  tunes 
they  make  frequent  use  of  the  incomplete  or 
pentatonic  scale,  omitting  the  fourth  and 
seventh  steps.  A  peculiarity  in  which  they 
are  almost  unique  is  a  curious  oscillation  be- 
tween a  major  key  and  its  relative  minor, 
especially  at  cadences,  so  that  one  gets  a  haunt- 
ing sense  of  uncertainty  that  enhances  tenfold 
their  plaintiveness.  In  "The  Angels  Done 
Changed  My  Name"  (Figure  XXXIV),  are 
exemplified  the  lowered  seventh  step  —  at  "I 
went  to  pray"  —  and  the  pentatonic  scale;  in 
"You  May  Bury  Me  in  the  East"  the  raised 

256 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


FIGURE  XXXIV. 
The  Angels  Done  Changed  My  Name.     From  "  Jubilee  Songs." 


I  _     went    to  the  hill  -  side,  I      went  to  pray,   I 


r    r 


know     the  an- gels  done     changed   my—    name,  Done 
changed   my    name      for    the     com -Ing   day,     Thank 


.11    a  j.  * 


God_      the  an-gels  done        changed    my      name. 
You  May  Bury  Me  in  the  East. 


You  may    Tau-ry  me    In    the  Bast,    You    may 

3 


l)u-ry  me  in.  the  West,  But  I'll  hear  the  trumpet  sound  In  that 


morn  -  ing.        In    that     morn  -  ing<  my    Lord 
3  ^ 


V  ii 


J/«"' 


V 


^ 


How  I  longtogOjFor  to  hear  the  trumpet  sound  ,In  that  morning. 
3  257 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

sixth  step  —  to  the  word  "trumpet"  —  and  the 
major-minor  cadence.  The  last  line  begins  un- 
mistakably in  E  flat,  and  ends  equally  unmis- 
takably in  C  minor,  and  gets  from  that  veering 
in  the  wind,  so  to  speak,  a  peculiar  flavor  which 
we  should  recognize  anywhere  as  "Negro."  It 
is  noteworthy  that  both  these  songs  have  to 
be  harmonized  strongly  and  simply  with  the 
staple  triads  —  it  is  impossible  to  harmonize 
them  otherwise.  In  other  words  they  are  the 
product  and  expression  of  a  primitive  but  pure 
and  strong  tonal  sense,  refreshingly  free  from 
the  effeminate  chromatic  harmonies  —  the 
"barber-shop  chords"  —  of  ragtime.  The  one 
compares  with  the  other  as  the  fervent  childish 
poetry  of  the  lines  here,  "Thank  God  the  angels 
done  changed  my  name,"  or  "I'll  hear  the 
trumpet  sound  in  that  morning"  compares 
with  the  slangy  doggerel  of  the  cabarets.1 
It  is  often  stated  that  the  chief  rhythmic 

1  For  example : 

"They  got  a  fiddler  there 
That  always  slickens  his  hair, 
An'  folks  he  sure  do  pull  some  bow," 

from  "The  Memphis  Blues,"  in  which  Mr.  H.  K.  Moderwell  as- 
sures us  we  shall  find  "characteristic  verse  of  a  high  order." 


characteristic  of  the  negro  music  is  the  so-called 
"  Scotch  jerk,"  the  jump  away  from  the  normally 
accented  note  to  another,  thrice  exemplified 
in  the  third  line  of  "The  Angels  Done  Changed 
My  Name,"  and  imitated  in  ragtime.  A  more 
typical  instance  of  it  is  "Didn't  My  Lord 
Deliver  Daniel"  (Figure  XXXV),  which  also 
further  illustrates  major-minor  idiom  in  its 
constant  see-saw  between  G  minor  and  B-flat 
major.  It  is  pointed  out  that  the  slaves  had 
a  strong  sense  of  time,  that  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  their  songs  are  in  duple  or 
march  time,  with  very  few  in  the  more  graceful 
but  less  vehement  triple  measure,  and  that  in 
their  "shouts"  or  religious  dances  they  rocked 

FIGURE  XXXV. 
Didn't  My  Lord  Deliver  Daniel  ? 


Did -n't     my  Lord  de-liv-er      Dan-iel    D*liv-er 

F       F '•   J]   J)  1    f      Jl    *      J\   I   ff     J)      J  J=JK 

I      ted    "        '  I      *    H    *    '  ^   *     ^   ^^F 
Dan-iel,  d'liv-er   Dan-iel,  Did-n't    my  Lord  de-liv-  er 


p  I  p  p  ^  EJ  p   I  J 


Dan  -  iel,  And  why  not  -  a     ev  -  'ry       man? 
259 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

Going  Up. 

(fr y'  S  ^n  ^n  ^n   I  #^  • J  fc    I  #^   •*  ^    I 

Oh,    yes,     Im        going  up,  going  up, 


P 


going      all     the        way,       Lord,      going    up, 


*» 


going    up,        to      see     the     hea-ven-ly     land. 

themselves  into  paroxysms  of  rhythmic  ex- 
citement, one  group  clapping  the  meter  while 
the  others  sang  and  scuffled  with  a  "jerking, 
twitching  motion  which  agitated  the  entire 
shouter  and  soon  brought  out  streams  of  per- 
spiration." l  No  doubt  the  jerk  evidences 
their  love  of  strong  accentuation ;  but  it  must 
be  noted  that  accentuation  is  a  purely  local 
thing,  affects  the  meter  rather  than  the  rhythm, 
and  may  be  assumed  and  put  off  by  a  tune  (as 
in  the  "ragging"  of  a  standard  melody)  with- 
out changing  its  essential  curve. 

Far  more  significant,  therefore,  than  their 
half-barbaric  fondness  for  the  jerk  is  the  grasp 
shown  by  negroes  over  the  larger  and  nobler 

lfThe  Nation,  May  30,  1867. 
260 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


reaches  of  rhythm,  their  feeling  for  the  phrase 
as  a  whole  and  ability  to  impress  upon  it  a 
firm  and  yet  varied  profile.  The  second  half 
of  "You  May  Bury  Me  in  the  East,"  with  its 
bold  festooning  of  outline,  even  more  strik- 
ingly the  tune  "Going  Up,"  with  its  piquant 
silences  and  its  even-paced  insistence  on  "going 
all  the  way,  Lord,"  show  a  unity  in  their  variety, 
a  certain  "  all-of-a-piece-ness,"  compared  with 
which  even  "Didn't  My  Lord  Deliver  Daniel" 
seems  scrappy,  and  the  ordinary  ragtime  effu- 
sion pitifully  poverty-stricken.  There  is  plenty 
of  internal  evidence,  too,  that  these  happy 
results  are  attributable  to  genuine  musical 
imagination,  and  not  to  luck  in  the  servile 
following  of  felicitous  word-patterns.  Indeed, 
the  frequency  with  which  unimportant  words 
are  accented  and  important  ones  slurred  over 
shows  that,  as  is  so  often  the  case  with  great 
melodists  like  Schubert,  the  words  were  re- 
garded more  or  less  as  convenient  pegs  to  hang 
the  melodies  on,  and  the  specifically  musical 
faculty  did  not  easily  brook  interference.  "The 
negroes  keep  exquisite  time,"  writes  one  of  the 
editors  of  "Slave  Songs  in  the  United  States," 

261 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

the  best  of  the  collections,  "and  do  not  suffer 
themselves  to  be  daunted  by  any  obstacle  in 
the  words.  The  most  obstinate  hymns  they 
will  force  to  do  duty  with  any  tune  they  please, 
and  will  dash  heroically  through  a  trochaic 
tune  at  the  head  of  a  column  of  iambs  with 
wonderful  skill."  The  sense  of  independent 
tone-pattern,  which  when  possessed  by  in- 
dividual geniuses  in  supreme  degree  gives  us 
the  immortal  melodies  of  a  Beethoven  or  a 
Brahms,  waxes  and  wanes  in  these  childlike 
tunes,  sometimes  falling  back  into  platitude, 
but  sometimes  advancing  to  a  real  distinction 
and  beauty. 

Whether  this  beauty  is  of  the  kind  we  have 
desiderated  as  the  highest  quality  folk-song 
can  have,  rendering  it  "suitable  to  enter  into 
music  that  may  bear  comparison  with  the  best 
music  of  the  world,"  is  a  further  question,  and 
one  which  brings  us  at  length  to  the  highly 
controversial  matter  of  the  kind  of  treatment 
that  the  composer  should  give  folk-material 
in  incorporating  it  into  his  more  finished  art. 
The  variations  of  taste  concerned  here  are  so 
subtle  that  probably  unanimity  of  judgment, 

262 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


even  if  it  be  desirable,  will  never  be  attained. 
Yet  it  is  certain  that  treatment  of  some  sort 
there  must  be.  The  mere  collecting,  collating, 
and  setting  forth  of  folk-songs,  attractively 
arranged  for  instruments  or  even  orchestrated, 
such  as  we  have  seen  much  of  from  all  countries 
in  recent  years,  is  no  more  musical  art  than  a 
pile  of  bricks  is  a  building,  or  a  series  of  anec- 
dotes literature.  So  far  as  it  tends  to  content 
the  public  with  such  potpourris,  the  fad  for 
folk-song  is  positively  injurious  to  taste,  in 
something  the  same  way  that  our  modern 
floods  of  petty  journalism  are  injurious  to  the 
capacity  for  sustained  reading.  Moreover,  even 
on  their  own  level  such  medleys  are  apt  to  be 
unsatisfactory;  for  the  tunes  themselves  are 
so  definite,  brief,  and  complete,  and  the  transi- 
tional passages  between  them  are  therefore  so 
obtrusively  transitional,  that  the  net  effect 
is  that  of  the  ill-baked  bread  pudding  from 
which  we  eat  nothing  but  the  raisins.  Mr. 
Coleridge-Taylor's  "Twenty-Four  Negro  Melo- 
dies," despite  incidental  attractions,  are  on 
the  whole  an  example  of  this  bad  model. 

Far   worse,    however,    are    those    "improve- 
263 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

merits"  of  folk-song  which  consist  in  a  general 
prettifying  of  its  homely  simplicity  with  all 
the  refinements  and  luxuries  of  sophisticated 
musical  technique  —  as  if  a  country  maiden 
should  conceal  her  healthy  color  under  layers 
of  rouge.  Strange  that  composers  skilful 
enough  to  use  them  should  not  recognize  the 
inappropriateness  of  Wagnerian  chromatics 
and  Debussyan  whole-tone  scale  harmonies, 
to  say  nothing  of  all  sorts  of  rich  dissonantal 
trappings,  to  tunes  as  diatonic  as  "God  Save 
the  King"  and  as  square  cut  as  the  "Hymn  of 
Joy."  One  would  think  that  the  sense  of 
humor,  which  revels  in  incongruity  in  music 
as  in  other  things,  would  keep  them  from  doing 
it  and  us  from  taking  it  so  seriously.  It  would 
be  invidious  to  name  examples,  but  they  can 
be  discovered  by  the  discerning ;  for  not  even 
the  negro  complexion  is  proof  against  this 
brand  of  talcum  powder. 

The  kind  of  change  that  is  both  legitimate 
and  necessary  may  perhaps  be  best  suggested 
by  another  example,  "Deep  River."  Here 
we  have,  in  the  first  phrase,  that  free  and  firm 
molding  of  rhythmic  pattern  which  is  often 

264 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


FIGURE  XXXVI. 
Deep  River. 


riv-  er,  my .  home  is    o-ver  Jop  -  dan, 


Deep riv- er, Lord  I  want  to  crossover  in- to  camp  ground 


so  surprising  in  these  songs,  so  that  we  might 
look  far  in  the  best  composers  without  finding 
its  peer  in  deliberate,  calm  beauty.  But  just 
as  our  hearts  are  responding  to  the  wave  of 
emotion  thus  generated  it  strikes,  so  to  speak, 
a  dead  wall,  falls  shattered,  and  has  to  begin 
over  again,  without  being  able  to  recover  the 
lost  momentum.  The  imagination  is  vital  as 
far  as  it  goes,  but  its  span  is  short,  it  lacks  sus- 
tained power  and  cumulative  force.  What  is 
needed  in  the  composer  who  would  deal  with 
such  material,  then,  in  addition  to  a  tact  that 
enters  into  its  spirit,  is  a  synthetic  imagination 
capable  of  rounding  out  its  incompleteness, 
of  tracing  the  whole  of  the  curve  it  suggests, 
of  developing  into  full  life  what  it  presents 
only  as  a  germ. 

265 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

How  difficult  such  a  truly  creative  treatment 
is,  only  those  fully  know  who  have  tried  it; 
how  rare,  musical  literature  testifies.  To  add 
a  measure  to  a  folk-song  is  almost  like  adding 
a  cubit  to  one's  stature,  and  for  the  same  reason 
—  that  addition  is  not  what  is  requisite,  but 
organic  growth.  That  it  is  possible  we  see 
in  Brahms's  masterly  treatment  of  German 
student  songs  in  his  "Academic  Festival  Over- 
ture" ;  that  it  can  be  applied  to  negro  melodies 
we  have  been  shown  especially  by  Dvorak. 
In  his  "New  World"  symphony  and  his 
"American"  Quartet  and  Quintet  he  assimi- 
lated a  peculiar  idiom  so  perfectly  that  there 
is  not  a  note,  even  in  the  highly  complex  har- 
monies toward  the  end  of  the  symphony,  that 
does  not  take  its  place  in  the  scheme  unob- 
trusively. While  the  harmonic  idiom  pre- 
ponderantly of  simple  triads  dictated  by  the 
material  is  maintained  with  an  unerring  sense 
of  style,  these  commonest  of  all  chords  are  so 
deftly  managed  that  they  never  become  com- 
monplace. The  twin  pitfalls  of  platitude  and 
sophistication  are  avoided  with  equal  success. 
The  same  felicity  is  attained  in  the  construc- 

266 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


tion.  However  brief  the  themes,  they  do  not 
sound  trivial  or  unconvincing,  because  we  feel 
they  have  reached  their  natural  growth.  Above 
all,  the  same  sympathy  and  power  that  are 
shown  in  these  technical  matters  so  control 
the  conception  as  a  whole  that  these  works 
form  a  true  idealization  of  negro  feeling,  in 
its  moods  both  of  half-barbaric  dance  and  of 
naively  pathetic  sentiment. 

Dvorak's  example  suffices  by  itself,  then,  to 
show  that  the  negro  music,  in  the  hands  of  a 
master,  is  capable  of  two  of  the  three  qualities 
we  demanded  of  any  folk-song  —  idiomatic 
distinctiveness  and  capacity  for  organized 
beauty.  Does  he  also  demonstrate  in  it  the 
third  —  adequacy  to  interpret  the  American 
temper?  Something  closely  kindred  to  that 
temper  and  easily  endeared  to  it  there  cer- 
tainly is  in  the  restless  rhythmic  energy,  the 
unceasing  motion  and  quick  changes  of  these 
scherzos,  the  vigor  and  dispatch  of  these  allegro 
movements.  Like  similar  syncopations  and 
other  rhythmic  peculiarities  that  we  find  in 
those  of  our  composers  who  have  more  than 
their  share  of  our  national  nervous  energy, 

267 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

such  as  Chadwick  and  Whiting,  the  negro 
rhythms  have  a  crispness  and  buoyancy  that 
is  somehow  appropriate  to  our  clear  skies  and 
self-helpful  society.  They  give  at  least  a  far 
fairer  portrait  of  us  than  the  caricature  of 
ragtime.  In  its  more  sentimental  moods,  too, 
negro  music  has  an  unsophistication,  an  un- 
reserved naivete,  that  reminds  us  of  similar 
traits  in  the  traditional  conception  of  our 
fellow  countrymen.  It  thus  seems  to  express 
more  of  our  national  temperament,  and  to 
leave  less  of  it  unexpressed  than  would  on  the 
whole  any  other  body  of  folk-song. 

Yet  the  very  attempt  to  formulate  these 
considerations  forces  us  to  realize  how  hope- 
lessly inadequate  they  are  as  an  account  of 
the  possibilities  of  America  in  music.  The 
picture  they  give  of  the  national  type  may  do 
something  like  justice  to  it  as  it  existed  in 
earlier  times  and  simpler  surroundings,  as  it 
appears,  for  instance,  in  the  pages  of  Mark 
Twain  or  Bret  Harte,  and  as  it  is  symbolised 
in  the  person  of  Uncle  Sam;  but  the  modern 
American  is  a  being  quite  other,  far  more  com- 
plex, far  more  cosmopolitan,  the  American  not 

268 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


of  nineteenth  century  New  England  but  of 
the  twentieth  century  "melting  pot."  He  is 
wholly  incommensurate  not  only  with  negro 
music  or  any  folk  music,  but  with  even  in- 
dividual composers  like  Dvorak  in  whom 
emotion  far  outruns  intellectual  subtlety.  No 
folk  music,  let  us  repeat,  no  individual  com- 
poser, no  school  of  composers,  can  "express" 
America.  The  age  of  such  simplicities  is  past, 
if  it  ever  existed.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
we  have  to  take  our  age  and  our  country  as 
they  are ;  they  are  an  age  of  rapidly  accelerat- 
ing intercommunication  of  all  peoples  and  a 
country  in  which  the  internationalism  that 
thus  slowly  results  is  being  hastened  by  actual 
admixture  on  a  heretofore  unprecedented  scale. 
Such  a  condition  doubtless  has  its  bad  as  well 
as  its  good  aspects ;  but  if  those  who  bemoan 
our  "featureless  cosmopolitanism"  and  advo- 
cate an  impossible  parochialism  as  the  only 
remedy  would  try  rather  to  see  how  a  wider 
outlook  and  a  larger  sympathy  may  deepen 
our  art  and  make  it  more  truly  human  by 
laying  less  stress  on  local,  national,  or  even 
racial  types,  and  more  on  the  untrammeled 

269 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

expression  of  the  greatest  possible  variety  of 
individuals,  music  would  fare  better.  "Na- 
tional literature:"  wrote  Goethe  to  Ecker- 
man  in  1827,  "the  term  has  no  longer  much 
meaning  to-day ;  the  time  for  universal  litera- 
ture is  come,  and  each  ought  to  work  to  hasten 
its  advent."  Signs  are  not  wanting  that  the 
condition  thus  discerned  by  the  wisest  men  a 
century  ago  is  ,now  gradually  getting  itself 
acknowledged  in  general  practice. 


If  we  accept,  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing 
considerations,  the  ideal  of  enlightened  ec- 
lecticism, not  only  for  our  own  music  here  in 
America  but  measurably  for  all  modern  music, 
since  it  is  all  subject  to  the  internationalization 
so  characteristic  of  our  time,  the  chief  under- 
taking that  remains  to  us  will  be  an  attempt 
to  define  the  position  of  the  American  com- 
poser in  relation  to  such  eclecticism,  the  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  of  his  situation, 
the  pitfalls  he  must  avoid,  and  the  opportunities 
he  should  embrace.  From  this  point  of  view 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  enthusiasts  of  na- 

270 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


tionalism,  in  advising  our  composer  to  confine 
himself  to  Indian,  Negro,  or  ragtime  material, 
in  adjuring  him  not  to  listen  to  the  siren  voice 
of  Europe,  are  not  merely  misleading  but 
cheating  him.  They  are  asking  him  to  throw 
away  his  birthright  of  wide  cosmopolitan  in- 
fluence for  a  mess  of  purely  parochial  pottage. 
They  are  bewailing  the  lack  in  America  of  just 
those  geographical  and  racial  boundary  lines 
that  split  up  Europe  into  a  series  of  more  or 
less  petty  and  hostile  camps.  They  are  in- 
viting us  to  descend  from  the  point  of  vantage 
good  fortune  has  given  us,  a  little  removed 
both  in  space  and  in  time  from  the  thick  of  the 
battle. 

For  it  is  indeed  the  peculiar  good  fortune  of 
the  young  American  composer  that  he  finds 
spread  out  before  him,  as  the  models  through 
the  study  of  which  he  is  to  acquire  an  important 
part  of  his  technical  equipment  and  of  his 
general  attitude  towards  art,  the  masterpieces 
of  the  various  European  countries,  among 
which  he  may  pick  and  choose  as  his  indi- 
vidual taste  directs,  and  without  being  ham- 
pered by  those  annoying  racial  and  national 

271 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

jealousies  from  which  the  most  intelligent 
European  cannot  quite  free  himself.  What 
he  may  acquire  of  the  special  virtue  of  each 
school  —  the  delicacy  and  distinction  of  the 
French,  the  solid  structural  power  of  the 
German,  the  suave  and  rich  coloring  of  the 
Russian,  the  austere  dignity  of  the  English  — 
is  limited,  not  by  the  accident  of  birth,  but 
only  by  his  own  assimilative  power.  No  ele- 
ment in  his  complex  nature  need  be  starved 
for  want  of  its  proper  food.  He  is  placed 
in  the  midst  of  the  stream  of  world  influences 
to  make  of  himself  what  he  will  and  can. 

Is  it  not  inconceivable  that  one  thus  privi- 
leged to  speak,  within  the  measure  of  his 
ability,  a  world  language  should  ever  content 
himself  with  a  Negro  or  Indian  dialect  ?  It 
would  be  so  perhaps  did  we  not  consider  that, 
in  order  to  speak  the  world  language  of  cos- 
mopolitan music  as  it  exists  to-day,  one  must 
spend  years  in  laborious  discipline  and  in  ob- 
scurity, while  any  tyro  can  make  a  certain 
effect  and  gain  a  certain  prominence  by  stam- 
mering in  an  idiom  strongly  enough  tinctured 
with  local  color.  Vanity  is  the  immemorial 

272 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


enemy  of  art;  if  the  itch  to  be  conspicuous 
once  infect  him,  the  artist  forgets  all  those 
subtle  adaptations,  those  difficult  reconcile- 
ments, which  were  formerly  his  passion,  and 
makes  a  crude  effect  that  appeals  much  more 
to  the  primitive  minds  of  the  masses.  And 
this  he  may  do  quite  unconsciously  and  in 
the  sincere  belief  that  he  is  pursuing  the  highest 
ideals.  In  the  presence  of  the  immediate  good, 
of  recognition  and  acclaim,  it  is  pitifully  easy 
to  forget  the  remote  better,  the  broader,  finer, 
subtler  beauty  that  is  not  yet  understood. 

But  if  the  picturesque,  the  quaint,  the 
piquant,  is  by  nature  more  quick  to  appeal 
than  the  beautiful,  it  is  also  more  short-lived. 
For  this  reason  those  writers  in  all  ages  and 
countries  who  depend  largely  on  local  color 
are  promptly  acclaimed  and  soon  forgotten, 
while  those  who  aim  at  the  more  universal 
human  qualities  win  gradually  a  place  that 
proves  permanent.  Bret  Harte  was  doubt- 
less considered  more  "American"  by  his  own 
generation  than  Emerson.  Shakespeare  is  far 
less  English  than  Defoe,  Dante  is  not  so  notably 
Italian,  or  Goethe  so  notably  German,  as  are 
T  273 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

many  lesser  men.  Or,  to  come  back  to  music, 
where  are  now  the  Russian  "nationalists" 
who  excluded  Tschaikowsky  the  "cosmopolite" 
from  their  magic  circle  ?  For  a  while  we 
listened  to  their  melancholy  Russian  cadences 
with  fascinated  interest,  in  spite  of  their  crude 
harmonization,  their  incoherent  form,  their 
lack  of  instinct  for  style,  because  we  were 
pleased  with  the  novelty.  Now  the  novelty 
has  worn  off,  and  for  human  nature's  daily 
food  we  find  Tschaikowsky,  who  made  the  most 
of  his  opportunities,  rose  above  a  narrow  ex- 
clusiveness,  and  assimilated  power  wherever  he 
found  it,  far  preferable. 

The  true  difficulty  of  the  American  com- 
poser's position,  then,  is  to  be  found,  not  in  the 
poverty  of  the  native  folk-song,  but  in  the 
confusing  variety  of  the  foreign  influences  in 
which  he  is  so  rich.  He  has  suffered  and  is 
still  suffering  from  an  embarrassment  of  riches, 
from  a  mental  indigestion.  His  cosmopoli- 
tanism is  indeed  too  often  "featureless,"  and 
his  readiness  to  be  influenced  an  evidence  of 
weakness  rather  than  strength,  a  flat  rather 
than  a  broad  eclecticism.  His  technique  is 

274 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


miscellaneous,  his  style  without  distinction, 
his  art  as  a  whole  lacks  individuality.  This 
featurelessness  is  the  typical  defect  of  Ameri- 
can compositions  of  the  present  generation, 
perhaps  —  typical  in  spite  of  some  notable 
exceptions.  The  technical  deficiencies  of  our 
pioneer  forefathers  are  more  and  more  be- 
coming things  of  the  past;  free  intercourse 
with  Europe  and  the  wholesale  importation 
of  skilled  European  musicians  have  refined 
away  the  crudities  with  surprising  rapidity; 
there  are  among  us  to-day  musical  workmen 
whose  skill  in  symphony,  chamber  music, 
and  opera  will  compare  favorably  with  that 
of  Europeans.  Where  we  still  fail  is  in  that 
subtle,  indefinable,  and  indispensable  touch 
of  personal  distinction  which  may  be  recog- 
nized in  artists  so  diverse,  both  individually 
and  racially,  as  Strauss,  d'Indy,  Debussy, 
Rachmaninoff,  Paderewski,  Sibelius,  Elgar. 
What  is  the  secret  of  this  distinction  ? 

We  may  get  a  clue  to  the  right  answer  by 
considering  a  peculiar  case,  an  exceptional 
case,  among  ourselves  —  the  exception  that 
proves  the  rule  —  the  case  of  MacDowell. 

275 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

The  supreme  place  he  undoubtedly  holds 
among  our  composers  is  due  precisely  to  this 
quality  of  personal  distinction,  of  individu- 
ality, to  the  fact  that  his  music,  in  spite  of 
the  pronounced  Grieg  and  Raff  elements  in 
it,  does  not  sound  quite  like  that  of  any  one 
else.  Technically  MacDowell  has  grave  de- 
ficiencies ;  his  harmonic  system  is  singularly 
limited,  mannered,  and  monotonous ;  his 
polyphony  is  weak;  his  "drawing,"  as  a 
painter  would  say,  is  often  halting  and  awk- 
ward. His  range  of  expression,  moreover, 
is  not  wide,  and  within  it  he  frequently 
cloys  by  an  over-sweet  sentimentalism.  But 
MacDowell  is  sincere,  and  he  is  always  him- 
self. There  are  no  unfused  elements  in  his 
style,  no  outstanding  features,  that  we  feel 
to  have  been  borrowed  and  not  assimilated. 
His  style  is  very  narrow,  but  it  is  his  own. 
And  the  result  is  that,  although  we  shall  soon 
forget  some  of  our  composers  who  are  far 
cleverer  than  he,  we  shall  not  forget  MacDowell. 
The  enemies  of  eclecticism  have  thus  ex- 
pressed a  half-truth,  we  begin  to  see,  when  they 
call  it  flabby.  Only  too  easily  does  it  become 

276 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


so.  As  dangerous  as  it  is  desirable,  it  will 
contribute  to  the  formation  of  an  artist  only 
when  it  is  controlled  by  an  instinctive  sense  of 
how  much  one  can  assimilate,  and  the  courage 
to  reject  the  rest.  And  here  we  come  to  one 
of  those  peculiar  difficulties  of  the  position  in 
which  the  American  composer  finds  himself. 
It  is  hard  for  him,  recognizing,  as  his  natural 
alertness  of  perception  and  his  detached  point 
of  view  enable  him  to  do,  the  merits  of  many 
different  European  aims  and  methods,  and, 
mainly  sensitive  as  he  must  be  to  his  own 
shortcomings  in  respect  to  any  of  them  — 
it  is  hard  for  him  to  distinguish  between  those 
that  he  can  possibly  assimilate  to  his  own  uses 
and  those  that  must  remain  alien  to  him ; 
and  it  is  doubly  hard  to  let  the  latter  alone, 
voluntarily  restricting  his  field  in  order  that 
he  may  be  the  master  of  it.  Yet  these  selec- 
tions, these  sacrifices,  are  at  the  very  foundation 
of  artistic  personality.  It  is  no  more  possible 
for  a  human  being  to  be,  let  us  say,  at  once  as 
subtle  as  Debussy  and  as  gorgeous  as  Strauss 
than  it  is  to  be  in  two  places  at  once.  Which 
will  you  do  without  ?  But  the  young  Ameri- 

277 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

can  composer  is  at  once  too  timid  and  too  am- 
bitious to  do  without  anything ;  in  the  attempt 
to  be  everywhere  at  the  same  time  he  cuts 
himself  up  into  little  pieces  that  end  by  being 
nowhere. 

The  frank  and  courageous  acceptance  of 
limitations  is,  in  truth,  the  first  step  toward 
artistic  individuality;  a  man  can  never  be  an 
individual,  as  the  very  derivation  of  the  word 
may  remind  him,  so  long  as  he  remains  di- 
vided, spread  out  very  wide  and  very  thin, 
unwilling  to  take  sides,  but  only  when  he 
concentrates  himself,  is  loyal  to  one  cause, 
grows  out  from  one  nucleus.  What  this  nu- 
cleus shall  be,  indeed,  differs  according  to 
circumstances.  For  the  European  musician 
it  is  to  some  extent  decided  beforehand,  by 
the  conditions  of  birth,  of  national  and  racial 
allegiance.  The  American,  as  we  said,  to  be- 
gin with  is  freer  in  this  respect;  but  we  may 
now  add  that  he  is  no  less  bound  to  find  a 
cause,  a  unifying  center,  if  he  would  get  be- 
yond mere  clever  imitation  and  become  a 
genuine  person.  He  must  love  his  cause 
so  singly  that  he  will  cleave  to  it,  and  forsake 

278 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


all  else.  Now  what  is  this  cause  for  the  Ameri- 
can composer  but  the  utmost  musical  beauty 
that  he,  as  an  individual  man  with  his  own 
qualities  and  defects,  is  capable  of  understand- 
ing and  striving  towards  ?  And  what  is  the 
"all  else"  that  he  must  forsake,  save  those 
types  of  musical  beauty  which,  whatever  may 
be  their  intrinsic  worth,  do  not  come  home  to 
him,  do  not  arouse  a  sympathetic  vibration 
in  him,  leave  him  cold  ?  He  must  take  sides. 
He  must  be,  not  a  philosopher,  but  a  partisan. 
He  must  have  good  hearty  enthusiasms,  and 
good  hearty  prejudices.  Only  so  can  he  be 
an  individual. 

It  matters  not  one  jot,  provided  this  course 
of  personal  loyalty  to  a  cause  be  steadfastly 
pursued,  what  the  special  characteristics  of 
style  of  the  music  may  be  to  which  one  gives 
one's  devotion.  Let  A  give  his  life  to  study- 
ing the  delicate  color  scheme  of  the  French 
"ultra-moderns";  let  B  find  his  joy  in  a 
polyphony  based  on  Bach's ;  let  C  develop 
lovingly  the  cadences  or  rhythms  of  Negro 
and  Indian  tunes ;  all  three  will  be  good 
musicians,  all  three  good  Americans  —  for, 

279 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

after  all,  American  music  is  only  music.  The 
man  who  is  neither  good  musician  nor  good 
American  is  the  botcher,  the  dilettante,  the 
clever  amateur  —  he  who  is  too  lazy  to  learn 
his  business,  too  pretentious  to  limit  his  claims, 
too  busy  talking  about  art  to  study  it.  Such 
babblers  have  always  been,  and  always  will 
be,  naturally,  far  more  numerous  than  the 
efficient  workers ;  and  they  will  doubtless  con- 
tinue to  fill  the  newspapers  and  magazines 
with  their  silly  superficialities,  and  do  their 
utmost  to  confuse  the  public  into  forgetting 
that  sincerity  and  skill  are  the  only  things  that 
can  ever  be  justly  demanded  of  an  artist. 

VI 

In  demanding  skill  and  sincerity  of  our 
composers,  however,  we  are  requiring  of  them, 
as  a  little  analysis  will  suffice  to  show,  labors 
and  sacrifices  of  which  only  the  rarest  natures 
are  capable ;  and  it  may  well  be  that  the  un- 
satisfactory character  of  composition  in  Amer- 
ica is  due  far  more  to  the  rarity  of  men  able 
or  willing  to  undertake  such  labors  and  en- 
dure such  sacrifices  than  to  the  difficulties  of 

280 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


the  aesthetic  problems  we  have  so  far  been  con- 
sidering. Let  us,  then,  in  closing,  try  to  sug- 
gest answers  to  the  purely  practical  questions  : 
Is  there  anything  about  our  social  and  economic 
system  that  lays  especial  burdens  on  creative 
artists  ?  If  there  is,  is  there  any  hope  of  cor- 
recting it  ?  Whether  it  may  be  corrected  or 
not,  may  our  composers,  through  candid  recog- 
nition of  it,  be  saved  from  dissipation  of  energy 
and  helped  to  concentrate  their  efforts  on 
objects  most  likely  to  be  achieved,  and  most 
worth  achieving  ?  We  shall  answer  all  these 
questions  affirmatively. 

First  we  must  note  that  the  amount  and 
intensity  of  mental  application  involved  in 
composition  is  something  of  which  the  layman 
has  little  idea.  The  technique  to  be  mastered 
by  the  composer  is  singularly  difficult;  the 
tonal  material  he  works  in  is  subtle  and  in- 
tangible ;  its  relationships,  harmonic,  rhythmic, 
melodic,  polyphonic,  which  he  must  learn  not 
only  to  understand  but  to  manipulate,  are  of 
an  indescribable  complexity;  and  he  achieves 
command  of  all  these  fundamental  or  gram- 
matical means  of  his  art  only  to  face  the  far 

281 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

subtler  distinctions  of  structure  and  style  on 
a  wise  apprehension  of  which  depends  his 
artistic  individuality.  Moreover,  if  he  would 
take  advantage  of  the  wide  and  unbiased 
view  of  European  music  which  we  have  seen 
to  be  a  special  privilege  of  the  intelligent 
American,  he  must  do  far  more  than  hear  or 
read  the  chief  works  of  many  masters ;  he 
must  know  them  in  and  out,  must  learn  to 
breathe  the  peculiar  atmosphere  of  each,  — 
must,  in  short,  live  with  them.  And  more 
than  that,  for  after  analysis  comes  synthesis, 
after  assimilation,  creation ;  and  as  the  one 
requires  laborious,  minute,  detailed  study, 
the  other  requires  a  wide  margin  of  leisure  in 
which  the  mind  can  forget  all  these  details, 
empty  itself  of  all  irrelevance,  and  prepare  to 
receive  whatever  thoughts  may  visit  it.  Here 
is  more  time  needed,  in  great  spaces.  This  is 
a  full  and  varied  way  of  living,  indeed,  that  we 
are  sketching;  and  we  have  not  yet  made  out 
how  the  artist  is  to  live  at  all.  How  is  he  to 
get  money  to  support  himself  ? 

Not,  certainly,  from  his  compositions.     They 
will  do  well  if  they  bring  him  enough  to  pay  for 

282 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


ink  and  paper;  they  will  surely  not  pay  for 
their  own  copying.  "A  man,"  says  Mr. 
Graham  Wallas,1  "who  gives  the  best  strength 
of  each  day  to  dreaming  about  the  nature  of 
God  or  the  State,  or  the  shape  of  the  earth,  or 
the  relation  of  the  sides  of  a  triangle  to  its 
hypotenuse,  produces  nothing  which  at  the 
end  of  the  day  he  can  easily  sell.  Since  the 
actual  process  of  inference  is  unconscious,  and 
his  voluntary  control  over  it  indirect  and  un- 
certain, he  is  not  even  sure  that  he  will  produce 
any  result  at  all,  whether  salable  or  unsalable, 
by  months  of  effort.  How  then  shall  he  live  ?  " 
If  this  is  the  situation  of  the  creative  thinker 
in  science,  what  shall  we  say  of  that  of  the 
creative  thinker  in  art?  As  we  have  seen  in 
discussing  the  relations  of  democracy  and 
music,  the  class  which  in  the  eighteenth  century 
bought  the  wares  of  the  composer  finds  its 
analogue,  under  our  capitalistic  industrial  sys- 
tem, in  the  frivolous  plutocracy,  who  demand 
of  music  curiosities,  novelties,  and  entertain- 
ment. The  vast  mass  of  listeners  emerging 
from  below,  on  the  other  hand,  of  crude  and 

1  "The  Great  Society,"  by  Graham  Wallas. 
283 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

childlike  taste,  prefer  stories  (program  music), 
day-dreaming,  and  sensationalism  to  beauty. 
Confronted  by  these  two  classes,  the  composer 
will  find  his  sincerity  likely  to  cost  him  dear. 
If  he  is  really  sincere,  if  he  is  trying  to  write 
music  that  presents  the  kind  of  beauty  that  he 
hears,  and  that  no  one  else  has  heard  in  just 
that  way  before,  he  will  find  himself  enjoying 
it  in  a  minority  of  one.  Yet  the  alternative, 
to  prostitute  himself  and  "give  the  public 
what  it  wants,"  is  even  worse ;  and  when  the 
public  says  to  him,  in  the  words  of  Mozart's 
publisher,  "Write  in  a  more  easy,  popular 
style,  or  I  will  not  print  a  note  or  give  you  a 
kreuzer,"  his  answer  can  be  no  other  than 
Mozart's :  "Then,  my  good  sir,  I  have  only 
to  resign  myself  and  die  of  hunger." 

Or  rather,  and  here  is  the  special  irony  of 
the  situation,  his  alternative  is  not  a  literal 
physical  hunger,  but  that  subtler  hunger  that 
follows  the  denial  of  the  imperious  instinct  to 
create  beauty;  he  has  not  to  starve  his  body 
of  bread,  but  his  soul  of  music.  For  while 
society  withholds  with  one  hand,  so  to  speak, 
any  payment  for  the  best  work  he  can  do, 

284 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


because  it  is  too  good,  because  it  requires  too 
long  to  be  understood,  it  freely  offers  him  with 
the  other  a  bare  livelihood,  if  not  more,  for 
work  of  secondary  value  —  teaching,  perform- 
ance, exposition,  anything  but  creation.  It 
constantly  pulls,  pushes,  cajoles,  persuades, 
coaxes,  browbeats  him  from  the  superior  to 
the  inferior  activity.  It  so  fills  his  days  with 
the  one  that  even  if  at  long  intervals  an  op- 
portunity for  the  other  presents  itself  he  has 
hardly  the  spirit  to  seize  it.  It  deadens  him 
with  detail,  drugs  him  with  drudgery,  cages 
him  until  he  forgets  how  to  sing.  Where,  as 
in  America,  there  exists  a  very  "high  standard 
of  living,"  as  it  is  quaintly  called,  meaning 
that  many  and  costly  material  wants  have  to 
be  met  before  spiritual  needs  can  be  considered, 
the  labor  imposed  by  such  a  struggle  may  be 
overwhelming.  And  it  is  superimposed,  we 
must  remember,  on  the  other  labor,  the  creative 
one,  described  above.  The  same  nerves,  body, 
and  brain,  in  the  same  twenty-four  hours  each 
day,  must  sustain  the  two  labors,  one  to  earn 
a  livelihood,  the  other  to  make  use  of  it.  No 
wonder  few  can  endure  it;  no  wonder  most 

285 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

give  it  up  in  despair  or  dull  indifference,  and 
content  themselves  with  the  livelihood  with- 
out taking  the  trouble  to  live. 

Not  only,  moreover,  are  the  broad  facts  of 
economics,  under  a  capitalistic-industrial  sys- 
tem, thus  flatly  inimical  to  creative  work,  but 
in  a  plutocratic  civilization  like  ours  the  more 
subtle  forces  of  public  opinion  are  perhaps 
even  more  fatal  to  it,  because  more  pervasive 
and  intangible.  In  Europe  the  impecunious 
artist  is  accepted  with  tolerance,  even  with  a 
touch  of  respect,  and  suffered  to  live  undis- 
turbed in  his  Bohemia  and  to  pursue  his  dreams. 
To  us,  who  still  as  a  people  recognize  no  meas- 
ure of  achievement  but  income,  and  who  accept 
without  a  murmur  the  domination  of  mass- 
convention  in  most  matters  of  opinion,  he  is 
something  worse  than  an  interesting  eccentric 
or  even  a  harmless  crank;  he  is  something 
of  a  sybarite  and  a  skulker;  he  is  one  who 
"doesn't  play  the  game."  Therefore  he  need 
look  to  us  for  understanding  or  sympathy  no 
more  than  for  more  material  rewards.  If  he 
wishes  to  be  approved  of,  let  him  do  something 
useful  —  that  is,  something  that  pays. 

286 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


When  we  realize  the  penalties  that  are  thus 
piled  upon  the  head  of  the  artist  whose  only 
offense  is  that  he  wishes  to  give  something  to 
society  of  which  it  does  not  yet  recognize  the 
value,  our  wonder  that  there  is  so  little  Ameri- 
can composition  of  the  first  quality  changes 
to  surprise  that  there  is  any.  We  begin  to 
suspect  —  as  Ruskin  did  at  forty,  and  devoted 
the  rest  of  his  life  to  demonstrating  the  truth 
of  his  suspicion  —  that  the  decadence  of  art 
we  witness  all  around  us  is  only  a  symptom  of 
a  deeper  disease,  and  that,  as  William  Morris 
expressed  it,  "Slavery  lies  between  us  and 
art."  *  Capitalistic  industrialism,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  saw,  "materializes  our  upper  class, 
vulgarizes  our  middle  class,  brutalizes  our 
lower  class";  and  under  such  conditions  vital 
art  can  have  no  secure  or  assured  life.  It 
may  well  be,  therefore,  that  art  can  only  in  the 
long  run  be  saved,  like  society  itself,  by  the 
fairer,  freer,  humaner  system  that  socialism 
promises.  It  cannot  but  thrill  all  true  lovers 
of  art  to  find  its  claims,  with  those  of  a  liberal- 

1  Quoted  in  "The  Socialist  Movement,"  by  J.  Ramsay  Mac- 
Donald,  p.  86. 

287 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

ized  society,  being  championed  to-day,  no 
longer  merely  by  individual  thinkers  like 
Ruskin  and  Morris,  but  by  great  representa- 
tive bodies  like  the  British  Labor  Party. 
"Society,  like  the  individual,"  says  a  draft 
report  of  this  party1  "does  not  live  by  bread 
alone  —  does  not  exist  only  for  perpetual 
wealth  production.  The  Labour  Party  will 
insist  on  greatly  increased  public  provision 
being  made  for  scientific  investigation  and 
original  research,  in  every  branch  of  knowledge, 
not  to  say  also  for  the  promotion  of  music, 
literature,  and  fine  art,  which  have  been  under 
capitalism  so  greatly  neglected,  and  upon 
which,  so  the  Labour  Party  holds,  any  real 
development  of  civilization  fundamentally  de- 
pends." 

Finally,  however,  inspiring  as  are  the  hopes 
these  words  suggest,  the  American  composer 
need  not  await  their  realization  before  putting 
forth  those  individual  efforts  without  the  aid 
of  which,  after  all,  they  can  never  attain  it. 
Music,  like  society,  has  reached  its  present 

1  The  Labor  Party's  Draft  Report  on  Reconstruction:  "The 
Aims  of  Labour,"  by  Arthur  Henderson,  Appendix,  page  106. 

288 


MUSIC     IN     AMERICA 


state  only  through  the  struggles,  against  im- 
mense odds,  of  its  martyrs  and  its  heroes  :  not 
only  of  Bach,  of  Mozart,  of  Beethoven,  of 
Schubert,  of  Wagner,  of  Brahms,  but  of  count- 
less others  who  have  wrought  and  suffered  in 
obscurity  and  with  a  consecration  of  their  more 
limited  powers  to  the  great  cause  of  beauty. 
And  if  American  life  lays  almost  crushing 
burdens  on  artistic  initiative,  there  is  also  in 
the  best  American  tradition  a  courage,  an  in- 
dependence, a  certain  nonchalant  and  plucky 
self-reliance  that  ought  to  carry  an  artist  far 
on  the  solitary  path  he  has  to  travel.  It 
ought  to  keep  him  from  turning  back,  though 
it  could  not  guard  him  against  wandering  and 
getting  lost.  All  that  can  help  him  there  is 
clearsightedness,  a  realistic  and  unsentimental 
view  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives  and  the 
terms  on  which  he  lives  in  it.  He  must  dis- 
charge the  work  he  does  for  a  livelihood  as 
conscientiously  as  he  can,  but  meanwhile  not 
forget  to  live  also.  He  must  not  make  the 
tragic  mistake,  the  unpardonable  sin  of  the 
artist,  described  by  Thoreau :  "To  please  our 
friends  and  relatives  we  turn  out  our  silver 
u  289 


CONTEMPORARY    COMPOSERS 

ore  in  cartloads,  while  we  neglect  to  work 
our  mines  of  gold  known  only  to  ourselves, 
far  up  in  the  Sierras,  where  we  pulled  up  a 
bush  in  our  mountain  walk,  and  saw  the 
glittering  treasure.  Let  us  return  thither. 
Let  it  be  the  price  of  our  freedom  to  make  that 
known."  He  must  cut  down  his  material 
requirements  to  the  minimum  and  honor  his 
own  poverty.  He  must  learn  to  find  his 
satisfaction  in  the  work  itself,  and  not  expect 
recognition,  which  is  bound  to  be  late  (even 
later  in  America  than  elsewhere),  and  likely 
to  be  mistaken.  Above  all,  he  must  not  pity 
himself  or  grow  embittered,  for  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  lifelong  enthusiasm,  an  ideal 
that  he  can  always  work  towards  and  will 
never  reach,  he  has  the  best  gift  that  life  has 
to  offer. 


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CHAPTER 

I.    The  Origins  of  Music. 

II.    The  Egyptians,  Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  Hebrews,  Arabians,  Indi- 
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III.  The  Greeks. 

IV.  Rome  and  the  Dark  Ages. 
V.    Scales  and  Notes. 

VI.  The  Less  Dark  Ages. 

VII.  Dunstable.    Dufay.    Des  Pres. 

VIII.  The  Golden  Age. 

IX.  The  Palace  of  Greenwich.    January  26, 1505. 

.<  X.  Song  and  Folk-Song. 

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XIII.  The  Viennese  Masters. 

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XV.    The  Post-Beethoven  Period. 
XVI.    Nationalism.    Modern  Schools. 
The  Chief  Names  of  Musical  History. 
Index. 

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premature  to  announce  —  and  this,  too,  without  any  disrespect  to  the  memory  of  Sir 
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